St. Charles, MO. - Two  months and they will no longer walk familiar halls. Two months and they will experience the real world. Two months and they will hold the key to their future.

Seniors across the nation are preparing for a day they have been waiting for since the start of high school. Graduation. The time when they walk across the stage, diploma in hand, representing how far they have come. While some spend their last two months making final memories with friends and families or thinking about their future, most are thinking about money.

“Their greatest concern should be the amount of debt they’ll have when they leave college,” registrar and director of admissions at St. Louis College of Pharmacy Penny Bryant said. “They should have a plan to pay for a degree, not just a semester or year.”

Today’s economy is driving the way many people live their lives. Thousands of people every day are losing jobs, therefore many households have cut down on the things they buy, how often they go out to eat and how much they drive. But one of the largest expenses a family can have is the expense of college. Some it’s not affecting, but others are taking a big hit. It can even come down to making the decision: College or not?

“It’s affecting the stress of applying for scholarships,” senior Sarah Henke of Francis Howell North High School in St. Charles, Mo., said. “I have to worry more about trying harder to get money because I’m paying for school on my own, and I know I’m going to have work while being a full-time student.”

For most like Henke, a huge number of scholarship applications can be found in school guidance offices, and from Web sites  such as fastweb.com or collegescholarships.com <http://collegescholarships.com/> . Amounts range from $500 to several thousands, and students have to fill out essays, get recommendations and complete application after application. Though tedious, these applications prove to be worth it.

“The more scholarships that I fill out the more likely I am to win some,” Henke said. “I’ve already won one through my bank, so my hopes are high for winning more. Every dollar makes a difference.”

For some, scholarships are not enough. It may not come to the drastic decision of not going to college, but it may force some students to stay home and attend a community college rather than attend a university because of cost.

“Both my mom and my step dad are teachers at a small high school and don’t make a whole lot of money,” senior Tyler Kirk of Francis Howell North in St. Charles, Mo., said. “My dad recently filed for bankruptcy. With all that, I don’t have the funds to afford to go to a bigger college so I won’t. I will most likely be staying home and attending a community college.”

Because the economy is affecting teens’ future plans after high school, colleges have started to make it less of a struggle for aspiring college students.

“A lot of colleges are freezing tuition,” Bryant said. “Some are upping scholarships and raising scholarship dollars. Some schools are giving almost full tuition. Families are losing funds with 529 savings plans. They borrow equity for homes and home equity is taking a hit as well.”

It’s come down to the fact that going to college won’t only affect the families of students, but the rest of the students’ lives. Almost all take out loans and are faced with paying them back after college. Many struggle to hold down jobs while learning to balance school and a social life.  Even with jobs they have paying for school will still set them back [in the future].

“[ I think college] affects teens, because they’re trying something new and it’s probably a lot more serious and different than high school,” Kirk said. “The assignments [most likely] are more strenuous and the grades affect their future more. Adding a job to the equation just adds a lot more stress and it takes a lot of time away from homework and activites they could be doing. I think I’ll be fine, but I have a lot of friends that get really stressed when they try to juggle a lot.”

By Jordyn Klackner
Francis Howell North High School