I’m a first-year college student who pays for her own tuition, room and board, meal plan, flights, and other miscellaneous expenses while at school. For one semester of schooling, I’ve had to pay my way through my savings from high school, working 3 jobs over the summer, working while in school, and loans. 

I thought the only plus-side to getting kicked off campus was that I’d be able to work more during online schooling and save up to afford my third semester… until my workplace was shut down due to COVID-19 concerns.

But that’s okay, I have a summer job lined up working as a camp counselor! Except…  at this rate, the camps likely won’t be running. So I guess I can’t depend on full-time employment this summer, either.

Thank God, we’re getting stimulus checks from the US government! 

Oh wait.

When Congress was drafting this stimulus bill, they touted it as every taxpayer getting a check. Great! I filed my taxes, and have since I was 16. 

But now the story has changed and there’s one crucial demographic that’s getting left behind: college students who filed as a dependent. 

I filed as a dependent for my taxes because my parents were paying for me to live with them for more than half the year. I left for college in August and now pay my own, very large, bills. I will be expecting more very large bills for the next three years that I am entirely responsible for. I literally can’t afford to not be working. (Yes, I am applying for another job, but not a lot of places are hiring someone who has to leave for Zoom calls 2-3 times a day.)

Also, I didn’t know exactly what it means to be “independent.” It was easier and safer for my first year of being an adult to just file as what I knew. 

Now, I’m forced to live with my parents again. But get this, I’m still paying my very large college bills all on my own.

When we include other forms of dependent adults, such as high schoolers over the age of 17 and the disabled or elderly, that equates to 21 million Americans who are invisible to this stimulus bill.  

Even if not all of these people are in a quasi-dependent status like myself, their families still deserve the help in paying for them. Minors qualify the head of household for an additional $500 to help with their expenses. How are other dependents any different?

Every adult, at the very least, deserves some sort of share in the stimulus checks. Just because I filed as dependent for 2019 does not mean that me and my family have enough money to throw at my college and not need additional money.

I’d be happy if they could cut my dad an additional $500 check that he could give to me to at least help make up for my lost wages. I’d be even happier, of course, with my own $1,200 check. That’s less than one month, but it’s more than I’ll likely be making in coming months.

Maybe it’s too late to change the specifications of the stimulus check, but I think if the federal government truly cared, they’d find a way.