Overdrawn

About a month ago, I enrolled a student in Brown's medical assisting program. She had disclosed in our first meeting some transportation issues, like not living on a bus route, and having limited access to rides. As a single mother, her finances are very limited. Sometime during the first week, she paid me a visit, and tearfully asked for five dollars for bus fare. Apparently, this guy she's been seeing could drop her off at school, but, for reasons unknown, couldn't pick her up just a few hours later. I obliged, and gave her the money.

Then, two weeks later, she showed up again, and asked for twenty dollars to get her through the next undetermined period. She asked politely, and nervously. Having been impoverished before, I know how hard it is to ask for money, and was glad that she had trust to approach me for such a favor. Last Monday, she again asked for another twenty.

I am not an ATM, nor is it my job to ensure she gets to and from the college. A big part of taking on any responsibility is first ensuring conditions are met to best allow for its success. I have a hard time believing there isn't anyone of her classmates who couldn't drive a few extra miles out of their way to give her a lift. I know that, morally, she's good for it, the almost fifty dollars I've doled out this month, but I also know people: she could drop school, and I'd be out the money. I'm preparing myself for the eventuality of her asking again, and I'm going to have to say no. To any amount. Hopefully her financial aid check arrives, and she'll have some extra spending money. I wonder, though, how she feeds her child, when she can't even muster up the coins to ride public transportation. How does she feed herself?

These are the things the job doesn't train me for, and what people don't understand when I tell them I work in admissions. In the past week, I've had people crying in my office, telling me about abusive boyfriends, and a nineteen year old who recently found out she has cervical cancer because her boyfriend slept with twenty other women, mostly her friends, and gave her the horrible condition. Two of my students are living out of their cars. Too many students want to talk about Jesus. Yesterday, I interviewed a woman who was clearly messed-up on some kind of drug, who kept looking over her shoulder, and only asked about the program's pharmacology program. I did not enroll her. I feel like a psychiatrist.

What am I supposed to do after days of hearing these very personal revelations?