My Trip to Albany to Make a Change

I represent LIM College as a member of the APC (Association of Proprietary Colleges) Council. As a proprietary college, LIM offers us reduced class sizes, endless opportunities, a close-knit community, and many other benefits students at larger schools can’t access. In late February, students who are a part of the APC Council all received the opportunity to meet with New York State Assembly Members and Senators during a “lobby day” in Albany.

During these meetings, we would speak up and ask for changes we wanted to see in next year's budget as it pertains to the NYS TAP Award. The TAP program is a huge assistance to me and to many other students who need financial aid to attend college. Not only did we share our stories about choosing our college, but we spoke up about how appreciative and thankful we are to have the TAP Award and also why the amount/threshold should be increased.

The Trip Schedule

After a long day of traveling on Monday, we made it to Albany. A few of these politicians and their teams even joined us at dinner, and I had the opportunity to speak with them about what LIM College is about. I also networked and met students from other APC member colleges.

On Tuesday, we went straight into back-to-back meetings from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. During our virtual meeting with Senator John C. Liu, he mentioned that we should all visit him in the capitol building. So once we were done with our meetings for the day, we stopped into his office to introduce ourselves and say hi! 

I valued this chance to be heard, ask for change, and share why financial aid is so important to me and other students like me.