Share your story

When we share our stories, we remind each other that we are not alone. We expose the pattern of injustice at Emerson. And we move one another to act.

3 easy ways to share your story:

Submit to #ECStudentsSpeakOut

Starting in December 2020, we started collecting student testimony about how tuition increases affected their lives. Submissions are open to anyone who has ever attended Emer$on, including graduates and students who transferred or dropped out. Check out this ever-expanding archive, and submit your own story below!

Note: We do not edit student submissions in any way.

  • Emerson is my dream school but the high tuition has left me 120,000 dollars in debt. I work full time while going to school full time and that strain on my mental health has been so present throughout my college career especially in the past year. I worry every night that this school which has given me so much in terms of my development has been the worst mistake I have ever made. -Anonymous student, class of 2022
  • My father has suffered from severe depression and has supported me solely off of welfare checks since I was in high school while my mother is an immigrant and unemployed. I work 40 hour work weeks while being a full time student at Emerson just to be able to support myself on a weekly basis while sending some money back home to my siblings. When I decided to go to Emerson, I didn’t quite understand the consequences of taking out loans nor did my parents. I am already $60k in student loans and have been denied additional aid by financial aid. It’s incredibly disheartening to continuously have to turn down dream internships, extracurriculars, projects, etc simply because I have to prioritize supporting myself and my family. Emerson prides itself in providing students with equal opportunities yet I have constantly felt ignored and silenced.- Anonymous student, class of 2021
  • I’m a low income student and with tuition rising, I highly doubt I’ll be able to continue my academic career at Emerson unless I become an RA—but even then I’m not too sure of what’ll happen financially. -Anonymous student, class of 2023
  • My mother struggles with a disability, making my father the only one in the household who can work. With my sister going off to college next year, I’m not sure how we’re going to be able to afford Emerson. I love this school, and I’d hate to leave it, but it’s so expensive and I don’t have time to apply to private scholarships. -Anonymous student, class of 2023
  • As a journalism major, the fact that they basically require you to have Apple products, which are much more expensive than me or my family can afford, stresses me out on a daily basis. This policy is overtly classist and is only in place to discourage poor students. Emerson wants us to have software that isn't necessary in the world or in the field at all, and tells us to buy the products from the school itself. -Anonymous student, class of 2023
  • Before I was accepted into Emerson, I didn't know about the tuition increases. I wasn't aware that tuition had been raised 4% over the past five years, which now only gets me to think, why wouldn't they do it again. Emerson wasn't my top choice. In fact, I had another college give me a full ride scholarship, but Emerson seemed like the place where I could dream and my ambitions could be apart of reality. It's only the second semester and I realize that I have to consider abandoning my dreams so I can survive after I get out of college. -Anonymous student, class of 2023 slide 1/4
  • While it gives a select group of students something to bond over, it really hurts to know that Emerson just can't or refuses to really assist those who need the help. I know it sounds cliche, but a tuition decrease especially would mean the world to me. Not just me, but my entire family. It even extends past that because I'm not the only one struggling to maintain a stay here at Emerson. -Anonymous student, class of 2023 slide 3/4
  • Emerson is an amazing school full of talented individuals who make the university what it is today. The students make Emerson Emerson, and if Emerson becomes a place where creative students can't find refuge and express themselves and their creativity without having to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to just live there, then I don't know what Emerson is anymore.
  • I already didn’t get any scholarships or aid from the school, paying the tuition is killing my parents. Having an increase will probably end with me changing schools or my parents going broke because of me. Please stop this from happening.
  • I took a gap semester before starting at Emerson. When I first got my financial aid package for the 2018-19 school year, I was surprised to find out that I was actually able to afford Emerson. However Emerson conveniently left out that they were giving me a full year’s worth of aid for the one semester. Now the amount of aid I receive has been cut in half because I’m here for the full year, and that’s on top of the rising tuition.
  • Any time I’ve gone to the financial aid office for help, they’ve told me that I should’ve chosen a cheaper school. I can’t afford the tuition at Emerson anymore, so I’ll be transferring this upcoming fall. It sucks because I’m an athlete, president of an org, and part of student government; you’d think Emerson would do whatever they could to keep me and other students like me around, but it just goes to show that all this school cares about is the money. -Anonymous student, would have been class of 2022 but leaving in 2020 slide 2/2
  • My mother struggles with a disability, making my father the only one in the household who can work. With my sister going off to college next year, I’m not sure how we’re going to be able to afford Emerson. I love this school, and I’d hate to leave it, but it’s so expensive and I don’t have time to apply to private scholarships. -Anonymous student, class of 2023
  • I had to leave Emerson for many negative reasons. I was never going to stay at Emerson but the tuition increase is what pushed me out as fast as I did. Not only is college an inappropriate decision financially for 17yr olds to make but Emerson manipulated many students I know, including myself stating that they would give more financial aid once committed to the school. Obviously I saw no such help once attending Emerson and the tuition just kept getting raised.
  • Something else to discuss is the fact that Emerson is a CLASSIST SCHOOL. The relationships I found between students were about wealth, where you vacation in between school, and where you buy new clothes when you don’t feel like washing your own. Therefore there was a level of competition for who could actually pay for tuition—you heard students brag about the LACK OF support they are given by the school or government. The whole culture of Emerson would have to change and embrace people of lower income and class statuses. -Anonymous student, would have been class of 2022 but left after 1 year slide 2/2
  • Emerson has been my dream school my entire life. And my parents agreed to let me come despite the financial burden it is on them. Because my dad’s medical expenses keep climbing I have to take out more loans to help my parents cover the costs of attending Emerson but the issue is my career will probably never make more than $50,000 a year.
  • Almost every career that Emerson has degrees for make nothing in comparison to the money we’re paying to get the degrees. I’m scared that I’ll be in debt forever to a school that isn’t even using my tuition dollars to get better equipment for my major and help me become more successful. And I can’t leave because I’m already in 70k of debt so if I leave for a cheaper option I won’t even have the Emerson name on my resume.
  • My mom is the sole producer of income and with her small salary it's impossible to pay for student loans, the mortgage, etc. Most loans need two cosigners which is impossible. I work two jobs to create savings and feed myself and pay rent. I am $140k~ in debt with one more year to go. I love Emerson, I do. But I break my back for this school in terms of activism, orgs, and trying to make Emerson the place I want it to be. Tuition increases without financial aid increasing — the ratio of aid you receive does not change per this inflation. There needs to be a change. We come to Emerson as artists, the creative types, the dreamers, the ones who have built themselves up from nothing because Emerson shines as this big bright light calling us to it. But only then do we realize that we are moths to fire. And it burns. -Anonymous student, class of 2022 (trying to graduate early in 2021
  • They make it so I have a constant fear about where I'm going to end up, where my life is going, and how my future and my future career will be impacted. I don't know if I can afford to stay at this school for four years. Emerson doesn't take good enough care of it's students, in most aspects of campus life, but especially in general quality of life. We pay too much to never have working heat, washers and dryers, or elevators. Our money should be coming back to us, and paying professors that deserve to be here, not going into the pockets of the more "important" people on campus and firing all part time professors due to the acquisition of Marlboro. -Anonymous student, class of 2023
  • There are few things that are as terrifying to me as Emerson's annual tuition increase. It’s one thing to allocate money for Emerson's expansion and development, but throughout my time at this school, I have never felt safe. I have never felt protected by Emerson in the face of adversity and attack- on the contrary, the school often feels like a perpetrator. Why am I paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to an institution that cannot foster an environment that meets its students basic needs? -Anonymous student, class of 2021
  • I am nervous about putting such a major financial burden both on myself and on my parents. I love my friends and professors at Emerson, but high tuition prices make it really hard for me and other people to stay enrolled here. -Anonymous student, class of 2022
  • My parents will have to choose between my father and sister’s medical bills and me getting an education. The debt is enormous.
  • The increasing tuition and lack of financial aid/consistent financial aid between years has put my whole family at risk of losing our house. Due to the careless mistakes and lack of communication from finaid and the constant tuition increases, I spend my time at Emerson in constant fear of what comes next. Decreasing tuition would mean the whole world to me. I wouldn’t have the giant boulder on my chest that is my situation anymore.
  • I have to drop out lol. -Anonymous student, would have been class of 2021
  • the tuition is 3x my family’s annual income, and my institutional aid was not increased to match despite my family losing half its income and our house. the only reason i was able to remain at emerson was a family friend co-signing a private loan, an immense act of charity many students won’t get. every time i asked financial aid for help, they told me they felt bad but their hands are tied. i have no idea if i’ll graduate or not. -Anonymous student, class of 2022
  • I feel more and more at home everyday at Emerson yet I have daily thoughts of dropping out to prevent any more increase in debt. I have panic attacks every once in a while whenever I think of how much I owe and what plan I need to form to pay it off. -Anonymous student, class of 2022
  • I am a first generation student and my parents want me to follow my passion no matter the cost. By 2022, we will be approximately $180,000 in loan debt and that’s with scholarships. I feel like I’m in over my head and that I should drop out. Even if I transferred, most Emerson credits are non-transferable and I’d be $90,000 in debt for nothing. Realistically, I don’t think I’ll be able to enter the career I’m studying for once I graduate. I need a high-paying job and entry-level film jobs aren’t that. - Anonymous student class of 2022
  • I chose Emerson because it was a fantastic education, and with my scholarship, the same price as a state school I’d been accepted to. I didn’t know about the past tuition increase until winter break, when my parents sat me down and told me just how serious they were about going dead broke from paying my tuition. They were already counting pennies. With a tuition increase, they couldn’t keep it up. - Anonymous student, class of 2022
  • I either had to transfer or figure out a way to bring the cost down, so now I’m graduating in three years. I most likely won’t be working in the field I want to work in when I leave, because it won’t pay off my loans. I have anxiety attacks too often thinking about whether my decision to go to Emerson was worth it, if I don’t even get to do what I love at the end. If they raise tuition again, I will not be able to stay at Emerson. And I’m not the only one. - Anonymous student, class of 2022

Submit to #ECParentsSpeakOut

Starting in March 2020, we started collecting parent testimony about how tuition increases affected their lives. Parents deserve to have their voices heard, too! Check out this ever-expanding archive, and submit your own story below!

Note: We do not edit parent submissions in any way.

Submit to our monthly newsletter

The ECSU newsletter is open to submissions from all people affiliated with Emerson College. We publish thinkpieces, DIYs, comics, and more! The only requirement is that the content relates to Emerson College and social justice. Work can be published anonymously or with your real or pen name.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started