<p>Another deadbeat recipient of need-based aid here - </p>
<p>Last year we saved and flew D home for spring break. She does not come home for Thanksgiving; the airfare is way too high. Over spring break I took a day off work and we went to see Princess and the Frog at the $2 theater. She caught up on sleep and did school work.</p>
<p>This year we are splurging. Her spring break is the same week as S’s hs break. He is a junior and we are driving out to see her and touring some colleges on the way. We have only been to her school once, when we took her to move in (she accepted it sight-unseen). School had already started for S so he didn’t come with us.</p>
<p>Our second-hand 1997 van is not too reliable, so we are borrowing a newer vehicle from my in-laws for the trip. We will bring some food with us so we don’t have too eat out too much. We will stay when possible with friends/relatives.</p>
<p>So now those of you who are concerned with us need-based aid recipients and our extravagant vacations can feel justified at how wasteful we are.</p>
<p>We are very grateful for the need based aid our D is receiving. My D hopes that someday she will be in a position to give back.</p>
<p>Home. He decided not to go to Florida to see spring training games with friends because they’re all 21 and he’s not, so he couldn’t go out with them at night. That’s fine by us. He might do some hiking nearby. The front door needs repainting, so maybe I can convince him to do that.</p>
<p>Next year at this time, both of my sons will be in college and DH and I will be back overseas. The boys will have very different Spring Break schedules, so my plan is to fly them somewhere to meet us. Maybe rent a house in one of our favorite places and just enjoy the week together. It will be sad not having everyone together at the same time, but nice having the individual time with each one.</p>
<p>S is home. H offered to take him snowboarding but S is tired and just wants to “chill”. Plus he has worked that is due when he gets back. He is not an organized sort so has never done anything but come home or go snowboarding with Dad.
D feels a week is too short of a time to go anywhere when she has so much work to do. I am going to meet up with her in Chicago for part of her break. She is within driving distance of Chicago.</p>
<p>Going on an alternative spring break (think community service trip)! I’m so excited to be helping out in urban HeadStart classrooms. Minimal cost, compared to the costs of planning a big trip with my friends, meeting new people, and visiting a new city. Can’t wait for my trip!! Sure, we’re still in the planning phases, but it’s going to be so much fun meeting people, helping people, and becoming close friends with the other students on my trip.</p>
<p>I’m writing this from Jaco Beach, Costa Rica right now on my last spring break. To all the naysayers on the thread this is ENTIRELY funded by me. I wait tables at night and have not had as many classes this semester so I worked just about every night the past few weeks since my last season of NCAA athletics has ended. A friend’s dad owns condos here so the stay is free. We have been doing cheap activities such as surfing, hiking, etc. and have been eating a local dives which are very cheap, tasty, and healthy. My parents pay nothing towards my tuition/room/board and I pay my rent and food off-campus. I have significant merit aid and receive minimal federal loans. The only thing I do not pay for is cell phone as I am on a family plan still. </p>
<p>I am lucky enough to live in Florida, so previous spring break destinations for me have included Sanibel, Siesta Key, Daytona, etc. all driven to with free stay as friends usually have a house to go to somewhere. All gas, food, fun were funded by me as well with part time work (full time in summer). I would never ask my parents for spring break money.</p>
<p>Pura Vida (Costa Rica’s motto)</p>
<p>EDIT: I also went abroad funded by myself with scholarships and traveled across 8 countries and have not lived at home in two years as I don’t have a bedroom there anymore and paid for all my food in that time. If you can find a lucrative enough part-time job and get most of school paid with scholarships doing all this is not unrealistic. It just took me a few months of working hard bussing tables before they moved me up to server and the money got a lot better.</p>
<p>It is a little dogmatic of some of the members to be appalled by need-based aid students going on vacation for spring break - myself being one of them. I am not currently in college, but I will be next year and I am receiving great financial aid in the form of grants.
This doesn’t make me any less deserving of going on vacation, though. I have saved up enough money in the last year to go to Mexico in a few weeks - which will be my first true vacation and my first experience on an airplane. It is humorous that some people take such offense when someone from a lower economic class works hard to get into schools that give great need-based aid and can still manage to save to go on a vacation for once in their lives. Btw, congrats erhswimming!</p>
<p>well put, eagles.<br>
paying your FAFSA and getting need aid does not imply that you are not allowed to travel or take a week off, good heavens.<br>
One of my best friends will be paying less than half of what we are assessed by colleges and I adore her daughter. Her mother’s income as an inner city public school teacher means that her daughter can afford to attend schools with need aid supplements that would be out of reach for us with our higher FAFSA. This is a harsh reality for many families who are assessed at higher rates…and who can’t afford their full EFC. But I want to hear that my friend’s daughter is enjoying getting around the USA to meet her classmates’ families and getting around on leisure and cultural trips while she is in college. They are very well traveled but they camp a lot.<br>
FAFSA supplements are not meant to be punitive and if you scramble and scheme properly, leisure trips are not out of reach for any student within some limits.</p>
<p>D is site leader for a Habitat for Humanity build near NOLA. S is taking up space in our family room when not hanging out at the house around the corner with “the boys.” Night & day, my kids … both wonderful, but each so different from the other.</p>
<p>I went on spring break once in college. Four girls in my Chevette, from Michigan via Indianapolis (to pick up a friend) to Fort Lauderdale (drove straight through). We met a bunch of other girls there, and we had two efficiencies in a very spare motel that was at least a mile from the ocean. We walked back & forth to the beach, cooked meals in the room, ate free food at happy hours, tried to get guys to buy us drinks. In other words, it was a poor woman’s trip. We had a blast!</p>
<p>Please, Mexico is not that bad.
The only bad places are Ciudad Juarez, Sinaloa state, and
I live here, go to a public school, on a somewhat sketchy neighboorhood and I’ve never seen a shooting. Neither my friends.
The worst thing that has happened to me is that one time were a scrawny kid with fast feet stole my $20 cellphone.</p>
<p>I don’t know why Americans are so scared of Mexico. Is the American goverment scaring U.S. citizens so they get to keep the tourists?</p>
<p>My daughter felt welcome and safe in Tijuana last spring. She was meeting with community activists, healthcare workers and environmental concerns agencies. </p>
<p>Just after they returned back to the US, the van they were traveling in was broken into while they were in a restaurant…</p>
<p>She gets need-based financial aid, but the school heavily supports mission trips through alumna gifts - about 30% of students do service projects during school breaks. The school’s catering service uses all student servers, and instead of paying wages puts money into their trip accounts. The rest of the trip was completely paid for through fund-raising (Guatamala was paid for this past Christmas by selling free trade items from Guatamala all over the city where she goes to school).</p>
<p>Spain over this spring break was possible because the school does not reduce need-based aid if the students receive scholarships from outside sources. She has three independent scholarships, and two of the foundations sent letters to the school requesting that this be so. The kid has a 3.94 after two and a half years in the most difficult major on campus, works as an RA and in the chem labs, is on the governing board of two campus groups… I think she’s entitled to a fun break.</p>
<p>It’s a private college and her Stafford loans are unsubsidized, so no tax-payers have been harmed by the trip.</p>
<p>The one D in Jamaica is having a fabulous time. </p>
<p>And the one planning on driving to Mexico has decided not to go. Instead she and her BF are buying a purebred puppy and going camping/climbing in Arizona. (The can’t afford both the puppy and the trip to Mexico. Truthfully I am glad the puppy won out.)</p>
<p>Oh, and both Ds pay for their own vacations. They have since they started college. Both kids went to college on merit aid and both kids work 1 or 2 part time school year jobs plus have full time summer jobs. I don’t begrudge them their vacations.</p>
<p>Well, with that comment I meant that Tijuana is seen as a Hive for all kinds of vices, very much like Vegas.
And well, the Crime at Tijuana isn’t very above the crime of Los Angeles. Just don’t go there with the purpose of purchasing drugs or other sorts of illegal activities (Which many tourists do…)</p>
<p>The South of Mexico is pretty ok. The northern part is somewhat unsafe (Ciudad Juarez and the state of Sinaloa) but it varies a lot depending on where you go.</p>
<p>Cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara, Los Cabos, Acapulco and Cancun are safe, and I can confirm it. Like I said, it’s just the reputation that Mexico obtained thanks to the sensationalist media. I’m sure that you can also find crime in places like Los Angeles or Chicago.</p>
<p>But I guess I won’t be able to many minds, will I?</p>
<p>At my Florida high school, each spring the last day of school before the spring break, our school’s principal would address the whole school on the public address system. He would do the same long speech/warning every year telling us to stay away from the beaches like Daytona and Cocoa Bch to avoid getting in trouble with the college crowd. By the time he was done giving his talk, all the students were so worked up, frothing and itching to get to Daytona for all the fun; his speech did the complete opposite of what the principal intended. When the dismissal bell went off, the school turned into a cloud of dust as all the students peeled rubber leaving the school parking lot and beelining it straight to Daytona Beach. It was like a scene right out of a Porky’s movie!</p>