Senior year is supposed to be a celebration of your high school career and the final stretch before heading off into the adult world, and it usually is! However, there is so much money that is demanded of seniors for simple things like caps and gowns, prom tickets, sending scores to colleges, etc. While it’s understandable that school field trips and formal wear cost a decent chunk of change, it is getting way too expensive to simply graduate, let alone enjoy your senior year.

Graduation is the main event, even if you don’t go on senior school trips or grad bash or prom, you will hopefully graduate and walk down the aisle in your cap and gown. Easy as pie, except for the $95 to buy a cap and gown, and that’s only cap and gown. If you want any other senior memorabilia that will be another $100 or so, but cap and gown is mandated to walk down the aisle. I understand that we have to buy them from a company, and they need to be shipped, but it shouldn’t cost 100 bucks to simply graduate.

Furthermore, why does it have to be $100 to send scores to colleges? While you get five free score sends when taking the SAT, many people are applying to more than five schools. Your scores aren’t even sent and processed quickly, with regular “shipping” it takes up to a week and “expedited shipping” can run you $31 a pop… to send online scores… online. It reeks of being silently scammed out of money that is lumped on top of application fees and enrollment fees when you manage to get into a college, which seem to get more expensive by the year. College will already be expensive, so why should seniors have to start feeling that weight so early over simply sending in scores and applications?

Now onto the expenses that some deem unnecessary, such as grad bash, prom and if you’re in an elective that does them, school trips. Grad bash is $100to wander around a theme park, get trapped in 3-hour lines and spend too much on water. While there is a valid argument that students are aware of that when they buy a ticket, but maybe the school should make sure it’s actual worth the $100 by picking a less crowded date or pushing for a limit of how many high schoolers are in the park at a time so that people can feel that they’ll actually get their money’s worth. Besides Grad Bash, many clubs or electives have school trips to places in Busch Gardens, Disney, Universal or conventions like FSPA at the end of the school year. Some are open to everyone, or they’re senior only, but either way it feels like there’s so much more pressure to go as a senior and the expenses for them can pile up quickly. While it’s easy to say “just don’t go”, maybe we should also reassess how we pressure seniors to do everything that is offered to them and make it less of an expectation to go on every single trip or activity.

Speaking of tickets, prom keeps getting more and more expensive by the year. Dress prices kept shooting through the roof, along with makeup, hair and dinner, all for one night where you wear a fancy dress and dance. This isn’t a diss on prom, it’s my most anticipated event this year, but you can’t ignore how expensive it has gotten. Another Part of it is the expectation to have this big, extravagant night and to have the best dress, best hair etc., but you can have a great prom without all the extra and save some money.

Senior year can be a great goodbye to high school, but it shouldn’t have to put us into debt. Expenses are inevitable, but it would be a lifesaver if schools could help lower costs or put in the effort to make them worth it like pushing for limits on the number of schools at Grad Bash or lowering the costs of caps and gowns.