He'll probably be pissed at me for mentioning this, but I'm worried that next quarter Rin won't be coming back. He's been tied up in a ridiculous amount of bureaucratic nonsense to do with financial aid. He can't get a loan because his mother can't cosign. He can't get disowned because of a technicality in his state. He can't get the aid he deserves because his mother technically has an income now. He doesn't get aid from his mother because she is technically insane, and has a huge amount of debt. He can't tell the government that she's insane, because his sister would be taken from his mother (who does seem to be able to care for her.) The financial aid office - with the flair and style of financial aid offices everywhere - has constantly done their best to be enthusiastically unhelpful. He's had trouble filing special circumstances forms, because the form leaves room for only a one paragraph explanation, and check boxes, none of which who fit his circumstance. It says, do not attach forms. There's a lot more to it, but it's all basically bullshit. Rin's managed to come this far without highschool, managed to be a straight A student, do amazing work, hold down a job, etc, but it seems no matter what he does, it's almost impossible to fill that monetary gap. Hopefully we can figure things out, or he may just have to take time off to work a couple jobs at once until more scholarship can be found. This country is so fucked up. I don't understand why our priorities aren't towards the education of our highly talented and intelligent citizens, instead of funneling money into conflict and corporate interests... those few bloated companies may do well, but in the long run our education system is resulting in us falling drastically behind other countries where a good education is easier to grasp... not that I feel that we should be in direct conflict with other countries, but a more educated global community seems to be a good thing to me. I'm not the first to state this, and I can only point towards anecdotal evidence, but every time one of my friends is screwed over by this system, I get very angry about it.