College Dreams

Fortunately, most of my students have tremendous parental encouragement and support regarding their choice to go to college. Parents fondly recall their roommates, favorite professors, autumn football games and the first all-nighter they pulled to finish a paper or study for an exam. They want their children to have wonderful college experiences.

 I also work with students who are the first in their families to attend college. Most of these parents are thrilled that their child has the desire and drive to choose college as part of his or her life path, even though they do not have personal memories of college life. 

Tough economic times have made it increasingly hard for families to afford college. Sometimes parents are not convinced that the value of a college education exceeds the cost. Convincing them may feel draining or impossible to the student. These tension-filled moments are brilliantly captured by poet Marge Piercy.

Where Dreams Come From
A girl slams the door of her little room
under the eaves where marauding squirrels
scamper overhead like herds of ideas.
She has forgotten to be grateful she has
finally a room with a door that shuts.

She is furious her parents don't comprehend
why she wants to go to college, that place
of musical comedy fantasies and weekend
football her father watches, beer can
in hand. It is as if she announced I want
to journey to Iceland or Machu Picchu.
Nobody in their family goes to college.
Where do dreams come from? Do they
sneak in through torn screens at night
to light on the arm like mosquitoes?

Are they passed from mouth to ear
like gossip or dirty jokes? Do they
sprout from underground on damp
mornings like toadstools that form
fairy rings on dewtipped grasses?

No, they slink out of books, they lurk
in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages
turned they rise like the scent of peonies
and infect the brain with their promise.
I want, I will, says the girl and already

she is halfway out the door and down
the street from this neighborhood, this
mortgaged house, this family tight
and constricting as the collar on the next
door dog who howls on his chain all night.

"Where Dreams Come From" by Marge Piercy, from The Hunger Moon: New and
Selected Poems, 1980-2010. C Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,qdr8,dv,960m,azf4,bni5,e2x5

Students—your parents do not owe you a college education. If they can help you attain it and choose to do so, you are very blessed.