It was a quarter to midnight and my goal for the evening wasn’t to study the media law and ethics textbook in front of me. Instead, I wanted to study the Red Bull drinkers, the chocolate munchers and the coffee chuggers; I wanted to see what sleep deprivation looked like for the average Canadian university student.

One week earlier, my editor at The Eyeopener convinced me to limit myself to no more than three hours of sleep each day to see how my mind and body would function on a less- than-advisable amount of rest. I foolishly complied.

I’d go to bed at 5 a.m. and set an alarm for 8. It would be fun, we agreed.

The next thing I knew, a security guard was patting me on the back. My face was flattened against chapter four of my textbook, and my sorry excuse for a beard was coated in a thick layer of drool.

“The library is closing, sir,” she said gently.

I looked at her perplexed, with my dry contact lenses sticking from my reddened eyeballs and a bead of saliva swaying off of my chin like the world’s most disgusting pendulum.

The look on her face as she looked at mine said it all: It was time for me to go to bed.

An average year studying at Ryerson costs anywhere between $7,131 and $11,149. Factor in a monthly student Metropass ($112) or rent, and that sweet, sweet bottle of Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice—or whatever you choose to spend your money on—and you’ll be confronted with an all too familiar reminder that it costs a lot of dollars and cents to be here. Students are drowning in bills and their own tears, and finding time to balance it all often means that a healthy sleep schedule is the first thing to go.