Education Equation
I awaken at the dawning light, before my body is ready to end the night. My day begins with monotonous routine, as I fathom the day’s events like a well-oiled machine. Commute the same route with the same people, as we forge our paths to our own steeple. We worship our jobs for a sense of security, while vanquishing all passions and dreams into obscurity. Each day bleeds into the next, as we collide together feeling so vexed. And for a moment I feel my mind begin to wander, and I’m left to my own thoughts that I alone ponder. When I was small and the world was my oyster, each choice was a path to my present employer. I studied hard as I attended various schools, and believed they would provide the necessary tools. I was told that I needed a college degree to proceed, and from there I would live a life that would allow me to succeed. But what does to cost to tender this degree, that leaves young adults with a burdensome fee? “Go to college so you can find a job; find a job so you can pay for college.” There seems to be something lost in this equation, that leaves students and parents with more than frustration. These debts live on past our lives and pass onto family, so our jobs become our saving grace as we live under constant agony. We thought we were living in the land of the free, but somewhere we exchanged our education to debt-slavery. How can we expect anyone to soar on the wings of their dreams, when they are loaded with debt to the highest extremes? We declared these truths of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but somewhere we lost them in the muck of this madness. Did our Founding Fathers imagine we’d become a country founded in student debt, that our continued education becomes our biggest regret? When will our modern Moses finally arrive, to release us from these shackles and allow us to thrive? When did our education become a debt sentence, as we sit here reviewing our choice to knowledge with repentance? – Susan Clark (SFCK) Artist: Makc via Shutterstock/Salon