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Two years into his college career, Zuberi Morrison found that he could no longer afford it.

This frustrated and angered him — he had to turn away from the "adult life" of learning and living on his own in Philadelphia while attending La Salle University, to move back home to Frederick.

However, in this unfortunate turn of events, he chose to see an opportunity. Deciding that he would rather try to start his own business than work for someone else, he has created his own line of inspirational T-shirts under the name "Beyu Movement," which he hopes will be his "baby business," where he can cut his teeth as he learns how to operate it.

"You work 40 years for somebody else to make them a whole lot of money," Morrison, 20 said. "You usually end up with a broken back and a lot of complaints at the end of the day."

Morrison has produced shirts with messages such as "Make Sense, Not War," "Don't Be a Robot," and "Avoid Limitations." He said he hopes the shirts will inspire people to explore their individuality.

Morrison and other students who find their financial situations don't match their dreams are turning to alternative means of raising the money to go to school. Some find themselves working odd jobs to ensure that they have the pocket money to survive while attending school; others are turning to creating nonprofit groups to raise money for bigger bills, including tuition.

Brendan Weeks, a graduate student at Mount Saint Mary's University, works part time for Organizational Strategies, Inc., a government contractor in Emmitsburg. However, when he found that his pay wasn't meeting his needs, he took an unusual second job pedaling "pedicabs," or bicycle-pulled taxis, in downtown Frederick.

"Several nights a week I pedal a bike taxi and solicit people for rides so I can make the additional cash that I need....I can tell you it has surely been one of the most unique working experiences of my life!" Weeks wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette.

Zach Jensen, 22, moved to Maryland from Illinois in 2008. He met the Allison family of Mount Airy in the spring of 2009, after their daughter Danika went off to college. He became very close with the family, and is almost like a brother to Daniel, the youngest son, who is soon to go off to college himself, said his mother, Nancy Allison.

Jensen studied for a while at Frederick Community College, but found it unfulfilling. Instead, he wants to attend Geneva College, a small liberal arts school with Christian values near Pittsburgh, Pa., in the fall.

"Zach was looking for something far more important to him than accumulating courses and credits and a major for a degree," Allison said.

However, a semester of tuition was $12,000, and even with financial aid, Jensen was more than $10,000 short, Allison said.

Though the family would have loved to put him through school, the cost of sending their children to college made it impossible for them. Instead, Jensen came up with another idea. The family created a nonprofit organization, the Zachary Jensen Education Fund, with the goal of raising the money he needs for tuition. He recently hosted a fundraiser concert in Frederick on June 12 which featured dancers, singers, musicians and story tellers, and was able to raise more than $4,630.

In order to attain tax-exempt status, the Allisons had to prove that the fund would raise money for any of several goals including charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals, according to the Internal Revenue Service website. In this case, it benefits education.

While he is still short of his goal, Nancy Allison said the hard-working Jensen, who works 48-hour weeks and still attends Frederick Community College, is hopeful that he will be able to afford his tuition.

"He believes miracles can happen," Allison said.

Morrison, whose T-shirt business is only just getting off the ground, also works at Lowe's home improvement center in Frederick, and finds that it eats into his time to pursue his goal, even as it provides him spending money.

He plans to return to college, and to pursue his degree in marketing, however, because of a love of learning. As soon as he has enough money, he said he wants to return to La Salle because of its prestigious name, and because he hopes his shirts will sell well in the larger Philadelphia market.

But more than that, college will give him some more time to be young, and to learn about himself.

"The grown-up life sucks," Morrison said.

E-mail Christian Brown at chbrown@gazette.net.