As I anticipate another email from the Provost’s office relaying how many more thousands we will be paying for tuition next fall, I can’t help but reevaluate my choice to attend college.
It wasn’t long ago that university was thought to be a playground for the wealthy elite. However, after the introduction of the G.I. Bill post-World War II, a policy that paid tuition and living fees for military veterans, college became accessible to a majority of the population. As costs continue to increase, however, the university’s return to its elitist status seems to grow more and more inevitable.
But what is so coveted about the campus landscape that has raised its cost for nearly a century? What does higher education offer to students that causes them to drain their bank accounts?
“I enjoy learning,” said Amanda LeMoine, a fourth-year English and socio-legal studies student. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career, but I knew I enjoyed school.”
LeMoine wasn’t the only student to follow this logic.
“I did it … because I like learning, because I think it’s cool, and that means I can do more stuff,” said Claire Fox, a second-year studying psychology and sociology.
Her answer began much differently, however. “Part of it was that I felt like I had no other choice… because it’s a pipeline, and I was following the pipeline because that’s what everybody else I know did,” she initially said.
Avery Bryant, another second-year English major, gave a similar explanation. “Because my parents were eager and willing to pay for me to go to school, and the opportunity to study… the humanities—graduating essentially debt-free–was a blessing.”
Bryant and Fox are interesting cases, as their testimonies highlight the potential lack of agency in young adults. Personally, I do not think it is that we go to college against our will, but we often feel cornered, and college is the way out. Of course, this is not the case for all students.
When asked why he chose to come to college, Caleb Smith, a computer science major in his second year, answered, “Because I didn’t want to be a cop for the rest of my life,” with a grin and a hearty chuckle. Smith served as security detail in the Air Force before coming to DU. “I wanted to get out and do something different,” he told me.
After recording the answers of my peers, I sat down and reviewed. As I scanned through my notebook, I could feel the answer to my question hovering in the air around me, nearly solidified. It seemed to me that students viewed college as a gateway into the greater world, into something beyond what they already knew.
I took a moment to reflect on it myself. I chose to come to college because I wanted to live in an unknown place, make friends of strangers and learn the secrets of the adult world. I wanted to become a better student, a better writer and a better version of myself.
Much like my peers, I was seeking something greater than what I already had, something I could call my own, something I could create.
Ultimately, college is what we make of it, a place of unlimited potential. So, I begin to understand why we scroll past that pesky Provost email with only a soft groan. Our reward for attending DU is sowed not only in the classroom, but in the moments in between, during the lives we create for ourselves in our free hours.
To me, those moments of growth and learning are priceless, and so, when the tuition bill rolls around again, I find a way to pay it, because I would give up a lot more to be exactly where I am right now.
