Facebook reveals money struggles in students’ lives

A Facebook page named Columbia University Class Confessions, where students from Columbia University can post anonymous confessions, is more than a funny Facebook page with sex confessions. The posts show how hard life is for students that come from poor families. Some of the entries are downright shocking.The page also contains posts about study stress and other ‘normal’ student discomforts, but it also shows how hard life as a student can be in a different system from that in the Netherlands. Like number 526: “Get me out of this school please. I can’t do it anymore. I’m dropping weight, I’m getting sick, I’m barely sleeping, I’m feeling myself get overworked from all the jobs I’m working and all the school work I’m doing. I’m feeling my body fall apart. I’m so afraid that I’m putting myself in an early grave just to get a fucking piece of paper.”

Or 521: “[…] does anyone know roughly how much it costs to be hospitalized? I ended up in the ER(a couple hours), the ICU(two days), and a regular hospital room(two days) three weeks ago because of a small car accident and I’m terrified about the bill. I’m on Aetna(Barnard) right now. Anyone have any estimates on how much it’ll be?”

Columbia University is a prestigious university, where a lot of students from rich families go to. According to the Dutch newspaper NRC, richer students sometimes seem to think that there are only wealthy students in their university. The Facebook page shows them a different view of their fellow students.

Besides giving richer students an insight in the lives of others, the people behind the page also started a crowdfunding campaign to help students in need, and it got a lot of attention from the international media. Also, students are trying to organize meet ups for lonely people, and find other ways to help each other. Other universities, like Cornell, have started similar pages.