The Single Story and Academic Power: How Institutions Push Students Toward the Edge

When we talk about higher education, we hear a lot about opportunity, access, and empowerment. But what we hear far less about is how easily that promise fractures — how quickly education becomes a machine that pushes students toward the edge of vulnerability.

And for those already standing on the precipice — it pushes them over.

Rarely do we speak of the students who, after being failed by the very systems meant to support them, find themselves trapped in cycles of housing insecurity, survival work, substance abuse, predatory relationships, or even human trafficking. Not because they are irresponsible, but because institutions routinely abdicate responsibility for student welfare while maintaining the appearance of inclusion.

This isn’t a metaphor. This is the underbelly of academia’s single story — the version that celebrates access while ignoring the costs many students bear to survive inside it.

When Belonging Is Conditional

From my earliest days in academic spaces, it was clear: education promises freedom — but only on certain terms. Independence is praised, but not if it disrupts. Institutions encourage critical thought, but only if it doesn’t challenge their comfort.

But being Black is, by default, a disturbance.

Being a tall Black woman only amplifies that disturbance.

Layer in unapologetic adult entertainment work, queer identity, and the refusal to shrink — and suddenly you become too complex, too difficult, too inconvenient to fit.

I didn’t fail to fit in.

The system was never designed to make room for me.

The danger does not begin with individual decisions — it begins with institutional cultures that decide who belongs, who is tolerated, and who is quietly pushed aside.

Pushed Out, Not Dropped Out

We often talk about dropout rates as though they reflect personal failure. But far too often, students are not simply “dropping out” — they are being pushed out.

They are pushed out by:

• Financial policies that keep students living paycheck to paycheck, often on the brink of homelessness.

• The absence of real support for those navigating trauma, disability, caregiving, or complex identities.

• Bureaucratic policies that punish non-traditional paths and timelines.

• Faculty and leadership who either cannot or will not advocate for students who challenge institutional norms.

The further behind you fall, the less grace the system offers.

The more intersectional your identity, the more "complicated" your presence becomes.

When institutions fail to provide meaningful safety nets, many students are forced into survival economies — not for lack of ambition or capability, but because the price of staying became impossible.

The Single Story Is About Power

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story offers a chilling truth:

“The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

In higher education, the single story presents itself as meritocracy:

Anyone can succeed if they work hard enough.

Access equals equality.

Inclusion has been achieved.

But behind that narrative is the constant pressure for students to suppress parts of themselves in order to survive. Adichie continues:

“It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the past structures of the world, and it is nkali. It loosely translates to ‘to be greater than another.’ Stories too are defined by nkali: how they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.”

In the academy, power lies with the institution:

Who decides whose story gets heard, whose pain is acknowledged, who receives second chances — and who is deemed too much, too complicated, or simply too inconvenient.

The Stories They Bury

We rarely hear about:

• The student sleeping in her car between classes.

• The one who disappears into survival sex work just to eat.

• The international student trapped in dangerous jobs, unable to lose their enrollment without risking deportation.

• The disabled student who loses funding because their disability disrupted an arbitrary timeline.

Their stories are framed as exceptions — tragic but rare — while institutions continue to showcase their diversity brochures and graduation rates.

Why I Tell This Story

I am one of those students.

Not because I lacked intelligence or ambition, but because I refused to amputate parts of myself to make others comfortable. Because I carried multiple identities that made me inconvenient to accommodate. Because I asked for help — and was met with silence. Because surviving the system became its own battle.

I share this not simply to tell my own story, but to expose the structures that allow these harms to continue in plain sight.

If we are serious about equity, we must stop romanticizing access and confront the conditions under which students are forced to survive. We must dismantle the institutional practices that turn education into a slow march toward crisis.

For too many students, it’s not just about getting in — it’s about staying alive once they do.

“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is the very heart of why I share my story — and why I continue to create space through Grandma Knows Best. Because stories not only expose harm; they offer the possibility of healing. They allow those who have been silenced, pushed out, or erased to reclaim their dignity, empower themselves, and remind others they are not alone.

Stories can disrupt power.

Stories can soften pain.

Stories can build futures.

And for many of us, telling the story becomes an act of survival itself.