Gainful Gov

Mon, 04/21/2014 - 19:15 -- AriRui

Location

My mind

Is an exploding world of trips and triggers

A field

Of mines and trenches, warring colors

And emotions.

Motion blurs and lines, and ideas!

But YOU

tell me my mind is a hole

A place

where GOLD falls in and failure falls out

Not because

I do not excel, I do no exceed

YOUR expectations,

But because I rose from ash and emptiness.

I dreamed

Of reaching out to you and your children,

Connecting

For a more colorful and enlightened world;

YOU think

I am not worthy of your golden hands

And yet....

And yet it is MY people your strength and brilliance

Is built upon.

We are the future you claw and scramble for

Yet YOU

Judge us lowly

Judge us slow

Judge us unfit

For the consideration and the RIGHT

The CHOICE

To think-

And act-

Upon our belief in expression.

You turn

Away from our greatness of heart and mind

Ignoring us

And the scintillating soul within each one.

 

So tell me

                                              Which one of us is gainful now?

 

Why I wrote this:

I am an animation student at the Art Institute. The program is fast-paced, focused, and exactly what I've always wanted and needed in a college.

This week I received a letter from my proprietary college stating that the U.S. department of Education is proposing rules that would mean students in need of financial aid would be limited in choices of what schools they could attend and what programs they would be allowed to take, stating that it is meant to "protect students" from unmanageable student debt and eventually defaulting on those debts. The rules would target for-profit colleges.

The rules would only apply to those who need financial aid, like myself.

No non-profit schools offer a course like AI's animation program.

I love my major and my school. I'm good at this, and it's how I express myself as well as how I want to contribute to society, and they are intending to take that away.

Instead of judging students on their individual performance or judging all schools equally, they are being biased and quite honestly imposing on students' right to choose.

It's called "gainful employment", reducing students to an investment.

We are individuals, brilliant, able, and talented, and I think we should be treated as such.

In addition, such rules would almost definitely shut down many proprietary colleges' programs, not only resulting in a widening skills gap, but also resulting in the loss of jobs for hundreds, if not thousands of teachers who are employed by for-profit colleges.

Sounds sketchy, don't you think? (No pun intended).

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