Nacre

I'm struggling with the personal history statement to some of the UCs that I'm applying to. Here's my situation: I was already admitted to a PhD program last year, accepted the admission and was preparing to attend when, halfway through the summer, the program informed me that much of their funding had dried up and that they would no longer be able to offer me any assistance. Long story short, I couldn't attend, not without taking out a crippling amount of loans. So here I am, applying to graduate school again. Should I mention my situation as one of the difficulties or hardships that informed my decision to attend grad school? To me, there is no better reaffirmation of my desire for graduate studies than the maddening boredom of sitting out a year, contemplating how awesome it would be if I could pull caffeine fulled all-nighters again. Or does this in some way hurt my application?

So I've applied to a brand new Cognitive Science PhD program at the University of Minnesota (Just started in the 2010-2011 academic year). If accepted, is it risky to attend a program that is so new? They seem to have adequate resources and the participating departments are highly ranked (their cognitive psychology is in the top 10, computer science department in the top 50, philosophy in the top 50). From what I can gather, it looks like a solid program. I am just in the dark as to how start up programs work. Any knowledge in this regard?