I want to go back to school.

I come across this thought whenever something goes wrong. I think that education is the key to solving most of my problems and answering most of my questions. However, I know that the education systems I have been engaged in always produce a problem that they cannot will not solve: Education is a financial burden.

It is nice to think of education as an “investment in one’s future,” but when you don’t have the money today to invest in the future, it is a loan. You borrow against your hope and the blush of a good name you have as a teenager or twenty-something. You borrow against the credit of family members and family friends. They let you because they believe in you. The banks and the government let you because they believe they can squeeze somewhere around twice as much out of you over time.

The hope of education is revolution. It’s learning systems to improve– or dissolve and replace– them. The hope of education is a better world. The hope of education is a future where my godchildren don’t have my worries. The hope of education is legacy of freedom from fear and freedom to choose with passion and expectation.

In America, poverty can look like anyone.

4 days until the next grocery day and all the rice we had for the month has already been cooked. There is a single serving in a refrigerator shared by four adults. We finished the ramen last month. We need sunblock. We ask the doctor to bill us for check-ups. We eat cheez-its for lunch. We drank water and ate popsicles when we wanted juice, but now we’re down to water.

There’s no milk so we put extra butter in the oatmeal. There’s no family dinner so that we don’t have to talk about what we don’t have and why we’re hungry. We don’t have to listen to each other’s stomachs cry or sit around drinking tea and pretending everything is okay. We consider eating candy we’re allergic to that someone gave to our house.

Poverty is not always wet socks in the winter, ill-fitting clothes, and government housing. Sometimes, it’s a dirty car, unkempt lawn, single servings of food, or watching TV through the meal hour.