Near the end of each school year, a certain disease infects a quarter of high schools. If you’ve graduated high school already then, odds are, you’ve already had this disease and are very familiar with it. Some people simply call it a lack of motivation or laziness, but the real term for this disease is Senioritis. 

Once students reach their senior year and senioritis starts to set in, they become eager to leave high school and move on to bigger and better things. But what are those bigger things? Are they truly better? 

The majority of students who graduate from high school tend to head off to a 4-year college of their choosing, take out some student loans, and start their lives on their own. Yes, I’m aware that there are some exceptions, but for now, let’s focus on students going to a 4-year college.

Assuming those students don’t have 60,000 dollars lying around to pay for their college, they’re going to take out some student loans which will most likely follow them for 20 or more years. Should those students, who are just recently learning how to live on their own, have to struggle to pay off thousands of dollars of schooling? 

Now, I understand that schools have to pay their staff and need money for their own expenses, so I’m not saying that college should be free. However, I am saying that college should be affordable for everyone. 

There are so many students who don’t get the opportunity to go to a good college because they simply can’t afford it. Even with scholarship money and other forms of financial aid, the cost of tuition, room and board, books, and other expenses are still too high. 

To ensure that all students have the opportunity to attend a good college, the prices need to be lowered drastically. Think about how educated our society would be if the ability to go to college and learn wasn’t only geared towards people with money. In order for us to grow as a society, we need change. Yes, it might be difficult and messy, but it’s what we need in order to grow.