Colleges and universities work hard to try to accommodate students' financial situations. Many institutions provide as much financial support as they can (63 percent of all undergraduates enrolled in 2003-04 received financial aid, according to the NCES). And some professors have begun to help students who work long hours by providing more flexible deadlines and simply by being understanding about their workloads. Professors can certainly do better in this regard, but they will not be able to fix the problem through these steps. Given the necessity of a college education today, the rising costs across the economy, and the larger numbers of students from diverse backgrounds who attend college, they may not be able to solve this problem at all. However, they can at least admit that a problem exists, and, at the bare minimum, they can stop joking about it at graduation. In the meantime, if you see someone sitting stoically through such jokes at a commencement service, it's probably someone calculating how much their next payment is and when they'll finally be free of such a burden.