The epitome of getting your dreams crushed.

[december_solstice]

Well sort of.

Can you believe there was a time when you could actually WORK your way through college? Now, students are spending the cost of a house in less than 4 years.

College is an investment. One that isn't easy to make if you're poor.

The worst is that overwhelming excitement you feel after finding out you got in -- then realizing you can't even afford the tuition deposit, or any other fee thrown at you that is required to even register for your classes.

My spirit? Crushed. My dreams? In ruins.

Yeah, I'll get over it, sure, eventually I will move along and carve a new path for myself.

But there is something else I've realized. It's all nonsensical. Higher education is a profitable business -- it does NOT have the student's best interest in mind.

Here is my story:

I recently completed my Bachelor's and graduated with a 3.5 GPA. This Spring, I applied for an MFA program, with the same university, and got in! This summer, I took my final 2 credits I needed to graduate and start my MFA program in the Fall.

By the time I was nearly done with my short 7 week summer course, I discovered that I would not qualify for any financial aid. For me to qualify, I would need to take 6 credits or more. Why would I take 6 credits, when I only need 2 to graduate? Why would I waste upwards 10,000 in federal grants, scholarships and student loans, that I simply do not need to spend? Why on earth would I do that? That funding could be applied to another deserving student.

This problem has only presented itself because I wanted to graduate this summer, instead of in the Fall. It was the most logical solution to complete my final credit in the summer, therefore being able to attend graduate school in the Fall. Logical. Common sense, even.

In order to start the MFA program, I needed to first fork out nearly $1500 in a matter of days. They did not offer me a payment plan even when I tried to explain to them-- Hey man, there isn't $1500 lying around under my mattress. Hey man, I'm living in it (rent). Which I can barely pay. I'm just trying to get ahead here. I am a working young person with little to no credit. I can't get a private student loan when I have no cosigner. Nor could I get a personal loan.

When I finally exhausted all of my options, I surrendered to the fate...that I kind of already saw coming.

That wasn't even the nail in the coffin, though.

Can I take a semester off to pay this off?

Admissions requires $500 for a 12 month deferment. BY MONDAY. Let me just go pick money from my money tree out back. Not only do I have to wait an entire school year, but I need to pay a tuition deposit for the f'ing tuition I am not even f'ing paying.

So tell me, does colleges have the student's best interest in mind? Because, excuse my french but, all I smell coming out of this university is bullshit.

Comments

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

There was another documentary about allergies around the world, which was done partially in France and Japan. In France they eat tons of "synthetic foods" among other things (as in literally everything is fake and has sugar in it, so complains my Danish friend who lives there), and in Japan they've replaced huge amounts of traditional wooden stuff with modern western, concrete buildings.

Apparently once you replace dirt roads with concrete, the pollen can't dissolve into the ground and get diffused - so where does it go? Into your body, or just sitting there on the ground and in the air, in amounts way more than normal even if you can't see it. When you stop using traditional, wooden houses that are made for the air to pass through, you live in a house with stuffy air where all the possible chemicals/everything just get trapped. Your body can't handle this as well, so you end up with a higher population of people who have health problems, asthma, allergies. (I read that it's similar with asthma - when you live in a dusty, moldy, cramped house or whatever your kids are more likely to get it, and the longer they live there the more likely they are to be stuck with asthma all their lives).

Then there's plastic. You know how plastic melts really easily? You know how it's porous? This means it's the worst material to put food, especially warm food, into because the plastic "gets into" your food. Apparently this can happen even if the food is cold but it's increased when it's warm. So why the hell are we using it for all our food packaging and storage containers? Most fabrics have plastic in them these days too. Oh look, our toothbrushes and baby toys are made of plastic.

So, everything that I see points to that we can only deviate from nature to a certain extent and past that we're completely ruining both our health and the environment. All my common sense and knowlege of 80's and 90's scifi (; D) points to that if even mere condensing and extracting of foods is too non-natural for our bodies, then genetically modified foods are going to end up being even worse. I heard that GMO corn is much worse for you than normal corn (though I haven't gone looking it up), so why would it be any different for ex. GMO grapes or chickens?

And why genetically modify food anyway? We've existed for thousands of years on what we have. We don't actually need stuff like bananas that don't have seeds in them. We don't actually need tomatoes that don't rot for five months. We don't even need MORE food because we (apparently??) already produce more than enough food - it's just that the food we have isn't used efficiently.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

The only reason why I support GMOs is because it grows easier/faster and lasts longer. Which can be very worthwhile for countries that suffer from food shortages. Fight global famine, sure, but we don't really need it for...convenience or aesthetic reasons (easy peel, seedless fruits), or extra bright apples. But why on earth would any organization create such a product to fight world hunger when you can instead profit greatly off of it by destroying soil and making people sick.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

It would make sense to supply 3rd world countries with seeds. But that will never happen. You are right, we do produce enough food to feed everyone, we just throw it away. There shouldn't be a single apple wasted. They should all end up in food banks or even distributed/offered for free (ugly, bruised, produce and near expired/expired pantry items).

There is a whole community to dumpster divers that show how much food is throw out by supermarkets.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

I really don't get why we do things like export our own local food and then import food from foreign countries, huge amounts of money going to waste here...