I am a junior at Mason studying government and international politics.

I pay for my own food, my own housing and my own tuition. I have to pay, out-of-pocket after financial aid, $2,446 this semester for my education (not including food and my cell phone bill each month).

While this may not seem like a lot, the burden of working and class combined is definitely stressful to say the least.

Kristie Colorado, a senior at Mason, studies Government and International Politics. In this video, Kristie talks about the shortcomings in American education.

As November comes to an end, December welcomes us with cold air, bundled coats and HIV awareness. Dec. 1—World AIDS Day—marks the beginning of HIV Awareness Month, and George Mason University students are eager to bring the awareness to campus.

Students gear up for what is going to be an exciting, educational event: Red Alert: Work the Runway—an HIV/AIDS Awareness Week fashion show occurring tonight, Nov. 30.

Academia and business, those star-crossed lovers, locked horns in two major educational crises this past year. First, the University of Virginia was thrown into turmoil when their Board of Visitors suddenly and brazenly fired and subsequently rehired the university president who, up to that point, had served less than two years. The second catastrophe came this past week in Chicago when negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union and the mayor dissolved into a full-on strike by the teachers, leaving nearly 400,000 students out of school.