The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

I t's not every day you meet a college sopho- more who serves burg- ers at the local McDonald's drive-thru just to put herself through college and graduate with a degree in quantitative economics. But in light of recent tuition hikes and the threat of some student loan rates doubling in less than a week, that's exactly what 18-year-old Hayley Hohman -- an Eastern Washington native and Washington State University "Cougar" -- is doing to fund her final years of college.

I know what it's like to be in Hayley's shoes. As someone who once worked the drive-thru window at our neighborhood McDonald...