Please Send Money

I need to make $5,000. In the next three weeks. (gasp)

Why? School. College. I go to college. Have you heard of it? You go there and it’s very expensive and they teach you things. It’s pretty great.

Fall semester is fast approaching, which means me handing over all of my summer-earned money to go towards tuition is fast approaching, too. I’ve been working full-time for the past two years to pay for all of my school expenses: tuition, books, gas, clothes, etc. I’ve always made it work. Sure, I never bought anything else, but I managed to squeeze by and pay for everything (and sneak in a few smoothies from the yummy smoothie shop at school).

This time, though, I seem to have very little money. What happened?! Was it the new car (used with 200,000 miles) I bought because my tiny sports car broke down? Was it the week trip to California? Wait, did I even work this summer? Yes, I did! I recall several hundred hours of working! What is going on?! Where is my money? There is no way I can make so much money in so little time. And there is equally no way that I’m dropping some of the courses I have scheduled… I’m so close! I’m almost done. I only have two semesters left of college!

Student loan, you say? What? Did I hear you right? No way, man. I don’t do that stuff.

Of course, today I did lock my better judgement away in a mental closet and research student loans online. It was a very stressful few minutes. Do you know that they either want you to pay monthly interest, or pay a monthly fee so that you don’t have to pay monthly interest?! That’s what I learned, and I didn’t even dig very far: they put that great deal on the front page of their website! No. Thank. You.

Still, even without the loan, I think I’ll be alright. With monthly payments to my school, working as much as I can around my class schedule, I should be able to make enough to pay everything by December. It’s how I roll. Student loans just make me itchy. How do people do it? How can you owe someone that much money? How do you go to school (or through life) everyday, knowing that you still have to pay for everything? Itchy.

All that said, I have another question: Why does college cost so much, anyhow?

So, I’m paying you (you, aka, the University) about $5,000 a semester, at really low full-time status: 13 credits. And how many $5,000 payments are you getting? How many students go to this University? Any University? Where does all that money go?

Sure, we use a lot of internet. And ink. And paper. Also, toilet paper. But, $5000 per semester per student worth? Even when you take professor’s wages into consideration… I’m not seeing it.

I’m sure we students would voluntarily bring in our own toilet paper, if that would help. We could just add it to our school supplies list, under Pilot G2 pens (seriously, those things are great). I will even sweep the floors. Anything else? Come on, work with me here! Can’t you see that we can’t afford this?

Now, all of that said, why isn’t there a website where one can go and sign up to be sponsored by a super-rich billionaire? Seriously. I mean, I am freaking out over $5,000, when I am sure there are people out there who make that much money in, like, fifteen minutes. Where are these people? How  does one get in contact? Super-rich billionaires love to give money to charities, right? Just call this one the “middle-class college students” charity. Or, the “People who can almost afford to go to College” organization. Simple, really. Somebody out there, make this website. Then, sign me up. Thanks.

(P.s, if you are a super-rich billionaire who is really excited about this fantastic offer, yet saddened that this website does not, in fact, yet exist, feel free to get in touch. After all, if you’ve read this entire post, you’ve already made enough money to help out this middle-class, slightly-poor, college student. I’ll totally tell all of my friends on Facebook about your generosity!)