What We Want, We Can No Longer Afford
By Ben Peryer

It has become a topic with which we have become very familiar -- college debt.

College students are faced with a busy school and work schedule only to soon enter a work force even more demanding of your time. What about the income? Well, that will be going towards paying off the debt of your college years starting at $20,000. And that is the best-case scenario.

Aren’t your college years supposed to be the times in your life when your biggest dilemma is whether or not to go to the house party around the block or test out that fake ID? Papers meant to be blown off and the most experience concerned gaining what was within the sheets of your bed.

That’s what I thought at least. Then I got to college and the stresses I had not prepared for kicked in. Stresses over a busy and demanding work schedule to make the rent and an internship, or a mock career as I will call it, consumes every waking minute. You know, the things you are supposed to worry about after college.

Students today have more on their plate than ever. The level of competition in the real world, that so-called world post-graduation, is more apparent to students than ever before. And they are smart to start sooner than later. But are they ready?

Let me quickly answer that question before it's assumed otherwise. Yes.

The best candidates for jobs, in my opinion are the ones with baby faces. This is perhaps the reason why my first internship in a professional public relations office, no one was over age 30.

With this, dare I say to the co-ed critics, high level of excellence among college students comes an even higher level of responsibilities, a word synonymous with stress.

For instance, take Ryan Campshire, a 20-year-old sophomore college student at New York University. He is an outstanding student with an internship worth boasting about, the assistant to the Director of Public Relations at Versace. Ryan’s resume glitters and his future is bright, however his wallet is empty.

With no financial help and no time for a better paying job than the admissions office at the university, he has taken out loans in order to stay in college and pay his rent. That number has become out of his control and he is considering leaving the expensive city of New York.

Why is it that students like Ryan cannot have both the time for school and the money is demands? In my opinion, the one thing most deserved by one person is education. This has now become the one thing no one can seem to afford.