Lillian Curtin

Would someone like to tell me why I, a film, television and media major, am taking a math class next semester?

Ironically, let’s do the math. According to Quinnipiac University’s official website, the yearly cost of attendance is $57,700. Some of you probably narrowed your brows at that sentence, because we all know it’s far more than that. If you factor in housing and meal plans it comes to about $75,600, not including hidden fees and graduate programs.

Thousands of students sign up each year at the age of 18 to willingly put themselves into a lifetime of debt, just to graduate and get a job that won’t even pay back half of it.

College is a scam, fabricated to appear as a meal ticket to wealth and prosperity, when in reality, those two things could be achieved without a meal plan that doesn’t carry over.

I think it’s really strange that I am typing this right now surrounded by the four walls of what I’ll call “my room” for the next seven months. Why do we dorm? Seriously. Some may say it’s for the classic “college experience” and to those some I’d have to agree. I mean, I’m here aren’t I?

But if we take a moment to think about it, couldn’t everything be a trade? We have trades, for people who want to be plumbers or electricians, but why not for people that want to be lawyers or teachers?

Why is it so normalized to attend a four year institution that requires you to take four General Education classes, covering all the basics that you have learned over the past 12 years, as well as a fine arts credit or two that’s used solely to stop the Art History department from having to host a tag sale to pay its electric bill.

I know the answer. It’s a money grab. Another way to dig a bunch of young adults further into a financial grave.

But it doesn’t end there. Of course it doesn’t. Let’s talk about Quinnipiac’s commuter meal plan policy. Let’s say you’re smarter and more financially responsible than the rest of us and choose to commute to school every day. You might have thought you avoided the crippling financial debt that your peers will be facing in the next 10-20 years, but you’re wrong.

According to Quinnipiac University, commuter students are required to have a meal plan, even though our dining hall takes card. Why would a commuter not be allowed to simply buy food on campus when they need it, instead of being held to a couple of hundred dollars they are never going to spend? Well, because it’s the university’s to spend.

To make matters worse, meal points don’t even transfer to the next year, only the next semester. And Quinnipiac is not the only school to have these strange requirements; most schools do. For example, the University of Connecticut, Purdue University, University of Buffalo, Montclair State University, University of Montevallo and many more all allow meal points to transfer into the next year.

You might be reading this, thinking I’m a hypocrite, because I write as though I’m not in my dorm right now typing this out. But I ask, has this never crossed your mind? Have you never rolled your eyes or sucked your teeth at the topic of student loans? Odds are you have, but you’re still here.

Why? I’ll tell you why I am. Because what choice do I have? It’s not always about getting the slip that says you’re qualified after four years, because we all know that the majority of our education in college is not coming from our classes, especially when finance majors are taking english and media studies majors are taking math.

Community college is always an option for those interested in non-trade fields, however what community college doesn’t offer are the hands-on clubs and experiences that a traditional college does. If I wasn’t here right now, I would not have the privilege of building my resume by writing this article, or contributing to all of the other clubs and organizations that I am a part of.

It’s not right, but when you make the intelligent choice to pay less, you are unfairly getting less. A degree is a degree that will always be true, however, experiences are not covered in a diploma.

When you stop to think about it, everything should be a trade. Want to be a nurse? Go to school for nursing, not english. Not history, but nursing.

We should be able to go to school for exactly what we want, have experiences along the way that align with our specific field and graduate with a diploma of equal value.

We are all unknowingly partaking in the masquerade, paying more to graduate with less. College and the experiences it offers should be reasonable and accessible to all financial statuses, not just those willing to go into a lifetime of debt.

Because at the end of the day, college is a scam, education is not.