Since September, when the economy really started to slide, we’ve heard the rumblings. Rumors of layoffs turn into reality. Jobs are drying up, and the number of qualified people running around without work is growing by the day. Panic never helps, though, and many are using their new-found free time to head back to school.

Hitting Home 
Nearly everyone in the United States has felt the recession by now. If you didn’t lose your job, chances are that you know someone who has. A friend of mine is living proof that more people are going back to school to fight the recession. He’d never quite finished school, but this had affected him marginally at best. There was never much of a problem finding work, until recently.

It started off pretty innocuously at first. When things started to get a little bumpy financially, the company he was working for cut staff–specifically, only family members kept their jobs. With a good reference in hand, my friend went on the hunt for a new job. That was almost six months ago.

He hasn’t just been catching up on movies he always wanted to see, though. Like so many others, he’s gone back to school, online. With only itinerant side jobs and unemployment, he’s had to make the most out of every dollar he spends. He doesn’t get out much lately, but he isn’t paying to commute to campus or park there.

With the credits he’d already earned a few years ago, he’ll be graduating in 2010. He’ll look much better on paper, and he’ll be better educated. This will, if all goes well, help him find work. In the meantime he’s joining the new online sensation: going back to school.