I think we all know that college has become more than an investment in our education, rather it has become an investment that we’ll be paying off for the rest of your life. For some of use, our loans will exceed $100,000, an amount that will accumulate interest just as fast as you can pay your $1,500–a–month bill. We’ll be forced to live with our parents after we thought we left home for the last time because we cannot afford an apartment or house to call our own. And the worst part, colleges are less than generous with their financial aid, maybe giving prospective students a couple of thousands of dollars that won’t even make a dent in the $50,000 tuition. It’s a sick and vicious cycle, really, because it’s extremely difficult to find a career with a decent pay and benefits without a college degree, but many cannot even afford to go to college to obtain those degrees. When we go to college, a huge chunk of our paycheck will go to our loans anyways, which will only cut our decent salary into one that we probably would’ve gotten without the degree to begin with.

I ask myself how this is even fair. It’s like these tuitions are punishment for wanting to expand our knowledge, pursue a career that spark our interest, find our true selves, and grow up into the person that we’ve always wanted to be. I can’t wrap my brain around that concept, because those things are going to be priceless milestones in my life and I don’t feel that I should have to pay an enormous bill for them.

What infuriates me even more is that you can work your butt off in high school, make honor roll every semester, be a three sport athlete, class president, and an active member of the community, and receive only minimal scholarships, making your efforts in high school seemingly irrelevant in terms of paying off your tuition. This makes the situation impossible to overcome, and many college bound students are essentially stuck when it comes to picking their future alma mater. In many cases we’ll find ourselves sacrificing our dream schools for one’s that are most financially reasonable, even if we have absolutely no interest in attending that school. That is not a decision that we should have to make, rather our choice should be centered around academic and social opportunities.

I just have trouble seeing the other side to this, because I see absolutely no reason to charge the ridiculous amounts that colleges do. The prices are not helping anyone, and the economy will plummet when my generation graduates college with so much debt that they cannot afford to buy apartments, houses, cars, or other expensive and economy–boosting products. In my opinion, this is an epidemic, and will only get worse as college tuitions rise and people’s ability to pay them off diminish.