About four minutes into the first episode of Netflix’s new A Different World, I paused the episode. My eyes had started to well up with tears.

I know that might sound dramatic. After all, I was only four minutes into a television show. But these weren’t feelings that suddenly appeared when I pressed play. They were questions and emotions I’d been carrying long before I sat down to watch it.

Deborah Wayne, the daughter of Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne, had wanted to attend New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Instead, she was beginning her college experience at Hillman, the fictional historically Black college at the center of the series.

I am a senior at NYU. I was watching a character wish she could attend the university where I’m spending my senior year, while I found myself wondering about the kind of college experience she was about to have.

I had already put off watching the show for nearly three weeks. I knew that seeing the traditions, friendships, and everyday experiences of students at a historically Black college or university might make me emotional. What I hadn’t expected was for my own university to be mentioned within the first five minutes of the show.

I don’t regret choosing NYU. But I still wonder about Spelman. I wonder what it would have been like to experience SpelHouse Homecoming, celebrating alongside students at Morehouse and Spelman. I wonder what it would have been like to have a Morehouse brother, wear all white for Spelman’s traditions, and become part of a lifelong sisterhood. Most of all, I wonder what it would have felt like to be part of a legacy of phenomenal Black women.

I was accepted to Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Both of my older sisters attended HBCUs. One graduated from Spelman in 2014, where she now works, and the other attended Howard University. I grew up in Ocoee, Florida, in a Jamaican American family where Black culture, community, and heritage were celebrated and deeply valued.

An HBCU education wasn’t something I had only imagined through television. It was part of my family’s story, and it could have been part of mine.

A Full Ride vs. Spelman

My dad had already taken out significant loans to help pay for my sisters’ college educations. And so by the time I was applying to universities, my dad made it clear that he wasn’t going to take on that kind of debt again. So, I needed to attend a school that would give me enough financial aid.

NYU offered me a full ride. Spelman didn’t.

The decision wasn’t simply about whether I preferred New York or Atlanta, or whether I wanted to attend a predominantly white institution or an HBCU. There was a financial reality my family couldn’t ignore. I had dreamed of attending NYU and romanticized what it would be like to live in the city that never sleeps. And the opportunity to receive an education there without placing the same burden on my parents was extraordinary.

But what does it mean when the college experience you might have wanted isn’t the one your family can afford? What if attending NYU seemed like the better choice because of the financial freedom it offered me? Spelman could have been a wonderful experience, too, if I’d received the same financial support. And maybe, even if both schools had offered me full rides, I still would have chosen NYU. After all, NYU was a dream of mine, too. But I’ll never know how I would have made that decision if money hadn’t been a factor.

What A Different World Gets Right About Money

As I continued watching A Different World, I found myself thinking more about how financial circumstances shape the college experiences we pursue and the ones we ultimately have. Money, after all, was central to the students’ stories at Hillman, too.

In the first episode, students at Hillman learn that their financial aid is being threatened. Deborah’s roommate, Rashida, discovers that she has lost a grant, and other students face similar news. By the end of the season, students are organizing against funding cuts, housing shortages, and the financial decisions affecting their education.

Deborah comes from a financially privileged family, but the students around her don’t all have that security. For some, the question isn’t whether they belong at Hillman. It’s whether they can afford to remain there.

I found that distinction meaningful. College is often described as a place where young people discover who they are and build their futures. But how much freedom do students actually have to choose the college experience they want when money determines which opportunities are available to them?

I know what financial aid made possible for me.

Loving NYU, Wondering About Spelman

NYU has given me opportunities I genuinely love. I’ve studied abroad in Ghana and England, met remarkable people, and learned from professors whose work and guidance have shaped my ambitions. As a journalism student interested in African history, culture, and Black storytelling, I’ve been able to explore questions that matter deeply to me.

Serving as Editor-in-Chief of NYU Local, one of my school’s independent student publications, has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my undergraduate education. Through journalism and my studies in Media, Culture, and Communication, I’ve developed interests and ambitions that I hope to carry with me long after graduation.

But my social life has been harder to love.

I haven’t made as many friends as I’d hoped, and I haven’t found the kind of Black community at NYU that I imagined I might have found at an HBCU. Sometimes, it feels as though being grateful for everything I’ve received should leave little room to acknowledge what’s missing.

And yes, some of that has to do with me. I have a responsibility to show up, reach out, and make space for relationships. But I also attend a university whose buildings are spread across New York City. The idea that the city is our campus is exciting. Living it, however, has made finding my people more challenging than I expected.

For me, as a Black student, that question has another dimension.

In fall 2025, Black students represented approximately 3.4 percent of NYU’s incoming first-year class, down from 7.5 percent in fall 2023. Those figures don’t represent the entire undergraduate population, nor can they explain any individual student’s experience of belonging. But they provide context for some of the questions I’ve had about finding community at NYU.

I value the university’s international diversity, and I’ve benefited from it personally. Yet I’ve wondered what it would have been like to attend an institution where Black history, traditions, and community were central to the college experience.

Singing in the Pit

In Episode 5, “Final Words,” when the students at Hillman gathered in the Pit and began singing “Can We Talk,” I smiled.

It was such a small moment, but it brought me so much joy. I thought about a friend of mine who attends Howard University, where she’s a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. She’s a senior, too. We graduated from the same high school, but we’ve had such different college experiences. I thought about how much she’s loved her time at Howard, about my sisters and the traditions they experienced, and about the friendships I might have formed if I’d attended an HBCU.

I know Black college life is more than the scenes that make it onto television or social media. There are difficult classes, financial pressures, ordinary days, and relationships that don’t work out.

Still, watching those students sing together reminded me of the traditions and everyday experiences I might have known if I’d attended an HBCU.

And perhaps what made the show especially personal was knowing that parts of the new A Different World were filmed at Spelman and Clark Atlanta, the very institutions where I had once been accepted.

I was watching a fictional version of a college experience that had once been a real possibility for me.

Of course, Hillman is fictional. Its friendships are written. I can’t compare my own college experience to a television series and conclude that I would have been happier somewhere else. Attending Spelman wouldn’t have guaranteed close friendships or an easier college experience. I might have struggled there, too.

But knowing that doesn’t make the feeling disappear.

I Wasn’t the Only One Wondering

After watching the show, I shared some of these thoughts on Threads. I admitted that although I love NYU, watching A Different World made me wonder whether I should have attended an HBCU.

I hadn’t realized how many other people were carrying similar feelings.

One woman shared that she had chosen the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over Spelman because UNC offered her a full scholarship while Spelman would have required loans. She loved her experience at UNC, but she still wondered about the one she might have had at Spelman.

Another woman described enjoying her time at the University of Georgia while continuing to grieve the possibility of attending Spelman. Someone else, nearly five years out of college, shared that she still mourned not attending Xavier University of Louisiana.

I was struck by how long those feelings had stayed with people.

But another response complicated my thinking. A woman who had attended an HBCU explained that she worked multiple jobs during college and missed some of the activities and connections she had hoped to experience.

Even attending the institution you wanted doesn’t necessarily mean getting the experience you imagined. Financial realities can shape life on an HBCU campus just as they can determine whether someone attends one in the first place.

Reading those responses, I began to realize that the question wasn’t necessarily whether we had made the wrong decisions. It was how to make sense of the possibilities that remained unavailable to us.

Two Students, Two Detours

In an October 27 New York Times opinion essay, sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom reflected on A Different World and the promises of Black progress and opportunity associated with Hillman College. Her essay considered the gap between the future that Hillman once helped Black Americans imagine and the realities that followed.

Her argument made me think about my own longing differently. I wasn’t watching the show wishing to return to an earlier generation of Black college life. I was wondering about an experience I could have chosen for myself just four years ago.

Here was Deborah Wayne, arriving at an HBCU after wanting something else. Her disappointment involved the place I had chosen. My longing involved the kind of place where she had landed. Yet neither of our college experiences could be separated from the circumstances that brought us there.

The difference, of course, is that Deborah is fictional. I can’t know what would have happened if I’d attended Spelman, or whether I would have found the community I imagined. I might have found myself longing for some of the opportunities NYU has given me.

I am happy that NYU is part of my story. I am grateful for the financial aid that made my education possible, for the professors who have invested in me, and for the experiences that have shaped who I am becoming.

But I still wonder what it would have felt like to spend these four years at Spelman.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to understand all along. I can know why I made a decision without knowing what my life would have looked like if I’d made another. I can recognize that my parents’ financial circumstances shaped my options without resenting them for it. And I can love the education I’ve received without pretending it gave me every experience I hoped for.

About four minutes into A Different World, a character wanted NYU. I paused the episode, nearly in tears, then kept watching her begin the college life I still wonder about.

Robin Young is a senior journalism student at New York University. The views expressed are her own.