I've never written a poem before.

But yet I find myself here

at 12:38AM on my laptop once more

looking for a solution.

A solution to pay for my tuition,

my books,

my room and board,

my education,

my future.

It is said that you cannot put a price on a

good education,

However the U.S. priced it to be about

ten thousand dollars

a year.

So yes,

yes I am up all hours of the night

tossing and turning

with the anxiety of numbers and dollar signs

and the sound of my dad's voice,

"as long as you get that degree at the end"

without even the slightest promise

of a good-paying job around that bend.

Here is where students sit

at the end of this road

getting run over by student loans,

credit card debt,

rent.

All while over seas people are free

free to go to school 

and learn to craft their skills

into glorious, 

thoughtful 

individuals.

All while our cookie-cutter university sytem

has one goal:

herding them out as quickly,

quietly,

and expensively as possible.

These money hungry executives

don't care about the unemployment rate

or how these 

mass produced graduates

are going to have to compete

for the little jobs available.

No wonder our country is in debt

watching tax dollars feeding 

millions of prisoners a year

instead of feeding the young,

promising minds of our future.

And thus, I sit here

awake with the weight of stress

to be the best 

as I write this 

for a scholarship.

In hope, by equal chance

I will be considered in the real world 

considered as any other graduate student would

for the elite job position

when in reality

the student who payed more

more for their same piece of paper "degree"

will get it.

At 1:38AM on my laptop once more

applying for solutions

solutions that won't slove the problem,

but only contribute to

and continue

my struggles as a college student.