I Survived the Henderson State University Budget Crisis of 2022 and All I Got Was Crippling Student Debt

By Emmy Pendergraft

Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t actually a good idea to apply to a university that had to cut back on scholarships to pay for a recent meth lab explosion in the science building. Boy, does it give you good scholarship essay writing material, though.

I graduated with 34 other hicks from a high school known only for its blackface scandal. My life is like a poorly-written teen HBO drama. I got a job at The Oracle (Henderson’s newspaper) before I had even stepped foot on the campus; I followed that up with practicum positions at the TV and radio stations. I was going to be a dedicated online journalist, and with a full-ride scholarship, I had my future ahead of me. I had finally escaped my hometown and, like a cliché Midwest emo song, was enjoying the beginning of the rest of my life.

The Oracle didn’t even exist by the time I left. If I ever have to write another article, I might drop out and go to clown college. I have taken out more student loans in one semester at UCA than most of my peers did for an entire academic year at Henderson. This is probably due to the whole, ya know, meth lab thing. It was probably a good idea to keep tuition rates low. Going to a financially stable school was kind of a culture shock. Like when buildings need repair, they get repaired, and none of the students get anxious every time they see construction equipment because they know it means their tuition might go up. A truly revolutionary concept.

Henderson State University is 78 million dollars in debt. I used to play this game when I was still debating about transferring, where I would look up exactly what you could buy with 78 million dollars. In case you were wondering, with 78 million dollars, Henderson could buy two 2022 Tesla Model Xs for every instructional faculty member on staff.

Perhaps one day, I’ll be noteworthy enough to write some tell-all memoir about my time there. About the way my bio professor left two weeks before finals because they fired her for budget cuts. About the way they cut twenty-five degree programs, mine included. About the way I was forced to live out the plot of a Disney Channel Original movie two days before my last final.

People I went to high school with like to stop me around campus and ask if I’m doing okay, if I like it here, if it’s better than Henderson. They always ask if it is better than Henderson. I can’t tell what I should comment on; the fact that my hometown is so close-knit they all knew where I went, that they thought of me when they saw that Forbes article about my program being cut on their Facebook feed, that they saw themselves as superior for not having made the decision to go there in the first place, or how much it hurts to answer that question. I still think about that school constantly. Sometimes I walk out of the student center and expect to see the RFA. I enter Snow and pause when I don’t see the dance studio on my way to the theatre.

Sometimes I hear the question, “Is it better than Henderson?” and I feel guilty. Sometimes people ask if I’m a freshman, then wince when I say, “I’m a Henderson transfer,” like I survived some major natural disaster. Like I escaped a horrific meth lab explosion and left all my peers and professors to burn (perhaps it’s too soon for this metaphor). I have survivor’s guilt, and this thing I am feeling is grief. I wish I had the time to unpack it all, to stop and pull out all the shrapnel and glass lodged in my skin from my escape. Instead, I’ll wrap it up in a nice bow and save it for the therapist I’ll be able to afford once I pay off all my student loans in 50 years (from a school that, at that point, will not exist). I’ll write a silly little piece about it and submit it to a student magazine in the hopes it makes me feel a little more useful. I’ll ignore it as I memorize monologues, scribble out storyboards, and walk across one of the prettiest campuses I’ve ever seen.

Alma Mater Henderson, for which I am forever grateful and eternally resentful.