A posh and privileged life he saw

Expounding on the points of law

          Assuming Duke’s tuition could be met

Alas! The ivied halls he sought

Could not by common folk be bought

          Without pre-emptive social safety net

 

He confidently went online

Low-interest loans flowed there like wine

          A boon afloat on public subsidies

With other peoples’ cash he got

A first-class sheepskin, piping hot

          And started banking hefty legal fees

 

A happy man he should have been

Instead he started wailing when

          The thoughtless lender mentioned his arrears

‘An outrage, this!’ he told the press

‘The terms I signed will leave me less

          Affluent than a portion of my peers!’

 

‘You see, the mortgage I can get

While burdened by this unjust debt

          Does not befit a person of my class

Where colleagues can luxuriate

Behind a stately enclave gate

          Suburban doldrums are my sorry pass’

 

‘Strike down this inequality!

This fiscal criminality!

          Restore me to the station that’s my due

In this great land, this sin can’t stand

Expunge this foul three hundred grand!

          You know that I would do the same for you’

She craved a calling medical

Well-compensated, vertical

          and set her sights on Stanford in the fall

It cost ten-fold state school amounts

Too rich for middle-class accounts!

          Wherever would she find the wherewithal?

 

With but a word to Sallie Mae

Tuition bills just went away

          A bounty guaranteed by Uncle Sam

Diploma tightly in her grip

She took a research fellowship

          And bought a shiny Lexus for the glam

 

But if her dreams had all come true

That sweet success was tinged with blue

          Each time she got a hated invoice page

‘I’ve worked so hard to reach this crown

And now they want to pull me down

          By bleeding me of fair and honest wage!’

 

‘With every month’s loan payment sent

I must neglect retirement

          Delay long-nurtured plans for idleness

The interest I’m depending on

To fund a villa on St. John

          Is not accruing with sufficient zest’

 

‘Those piles of dough I freely took?

Just numbers in a ledger book!

          Let dry accountants balance them at will

Call off your bloodhounds, Sallie Mae

And let a grateful nation pay

          This fine physician’s fancy college bill’

 

O pity you, these victims who

Do owe their rosy prospects to

          Plain working stiffs who live from check to check

If they cannot have parity

With everyone of like degree

          American ideals are naught but dreck

 

If paying back the dough you owe

Is well and good for Average Joe

          Who’ll own the minivan in four more years

The products of diploma mills

Prefer a better class of bills

          Can’t you let them off the hook, poor dears?

 

Yes times are tough in Palestine

Detroit is mostly fit for swine

          The deficit grows larger by the day

But if we don’t at once atone

To those we’ve wronged by student loan

          The crisis won’t shut up and go away