The high price of gas is making it tough for rural community college students to continue their studies, according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Food and shelter  — that's what we're hearing from the students who are withdrawing," says Paul Kraft, director of student services at the University of New Mexico at Gallup, a two-year institution in the high desert of western New Mexico.

Community colleges are doing more courses online or on camera. Some students are trying to cram all their courses into one day of dawn to dark work. And others, of course, just drop out.

Students driving across Yonder have problems city residents can't imagine. One West Texas student would like to drive a smaller car, but she's hit three deer in the last three years. She takes her pickup on the 70-mile trip from Big Lake to Big Spring "because it's just safer."