For many college students, the question of tuition is a difficult one. It’s impossible to pay without adequate financial aid or loans, but many students don’t have enough financial aid and don’t want to go into debt just to get a degree. So what do you do? For me, the answer was simple. Instead of taking out thousands of dollars in loans, I decided to take advantage of the resources that we have right here at Whitman — oil.

You may not be able to tell from the looks of it, but Ankeny Field is home to a fairly significant oil deposit. It’s also hard to tell from the looks of it, but every night, after everyone goes to bed, the fracking begins. It’s difficult to hide all of my fracking equipment, especially in the dorms. But it’s worth the effort. While other students are bleeding their savings dry to attend Whitman, my savings have skyrocketed. 

While members of the Whitman College Board of Trustees were previously unaware of my entrepreneurship, they stated that “Whitman College is proud to be the school of problem solvers and trailblazers.” Following this statement, they immediately told me to “cease” any and all actions relating to fracking.

In hindsight, my mistake was making my fracking public. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would’ve changed two things: fracked more, and fracked harder. To anyone that is struggling with tuition, there is still oil out there, you just have to find it.