Why such a hard time with my hair?

It could be your iron because any texture of hair can get straight so it's not your hair.  You may want to invest in a good ceramic iron.  There's a lot of different ones, go to Folica.com and check them out.  I can only suggest the maxiglide because it's the only one I've used.  It is an awsome iron.  My hair gets stick straight on the first glide.

As far as your new growth being hard to straighten the problem may be how you are drying your hair.  A lot of ladies that are stretching relaxers slick their hair back in a ponytail and a scarf so the new growth will be straight.  I've seen this demonstrated in someone's fotki but I can't remember who it was, sorry.

talking to a poor college student here guys any cheaper good flat iron suggestions something in the 20 to 30 dollar range?

It's most likely not your hair. Are you blow drying with a large tooth comb attachment, because it's hard to blow dry kinky hair straight without it by yourself. I can get my new grow 75% straight with just the blow dryer.

Also when blow drying & flat ironing reduce the size of the section your are dealing with. I personally can not work with anything larger than say, 2 fingers. So try dividing your roller section in half and working with that. It takes me about an hour to do my entire head, but I can get it relaxer straight if I want to.

Finally, perhaps you do need a new iron and what products are you using? I can't say enough about ORS Olive Oil Lotion or even WGO. They both help when blow drying/ironing.

I have 4a/b hair and I flat iron when my hair is out of braids 1x a week. This is my trick.

Apply a generous amount of ORS Olive Oil Lotion to damp hair. If you use double heat of the blow dryer this helps, and it is also excellent if you air dry. I mainly section off and do twist.

http://public.fotki.com/1babydimple/i_love_me_challenge/wett wist.html

Because I do twist to dry my hair, it is sectioned while it's drying, this also helps to calm the kink and the comb out.

To flat iron you must 1, have completely dry hair and 2, grab the section of hair mid way and pull it straight before the iron even hits it.

Think of it like this the iron  just flattens wrinkles, basically. So if you let it be balled-up it will take a lot of heat, but if you lay it as flat as possible it will iron flatter and quicker. Ever tried to iron a shirt that's balled up

good luck I hope this helps

USE a little more heat protectant on the new growth..if that doesn't work.. I'd say use "grease"!.. I know I'm totally going against a lot of ladies when I say this..but it has never failed me once..and I have never noticed it harming my hair..as long you dont apply it to your scalp.  Only do this if you absolutely can't get it straight