By Mackenzie Pitsko
College students say higher prices are causing them added stress.
Increased student loans and housing prices force college students to work more to pay for their education. Students said the conditions made them feel anxious and overly focused on finances.
“Everything I’m getting from The Dav [workplace] and babysitting is just paying my loans off,” American University student Emmalynn Beck said.
Beck and other students like her are working more jobs to keep up with the financial pressure, but according to Beck it can impact their health.
“I got an average of three hours of sleep, so that was the peak of ‘this is not healthy,’” Beck said.
Beck said she also worries about finding a major that has a stable career path attached to it. “Philosophy’s great but I will make no money,” she said.
Beck said she decided to double major in Economics, as well as Philosophy. “…philosophy was kind of one of those things that I was like ‘yes I’m passionate about this and yes this is what I want to do,’ but realistically I need to be able to make income when I leave, so that’s where economics came in,” she said.
Loyola Marymount University student Jenna Valentine agreed with Beck. “Psychology was kind of a fallback financially,” Valentine said.
Valentine said she has anxiety about her student loans. “When I picked my final major, I was like ‘oh no big deal, screenwriting is my passion; it’s what I want to do,’” she said, “but then when I kept thinking about that transition, it felt like more of an impossible thing to pay off.”
“Film is a very sporadic thing, there’s very few jobs where you stay working at one company for your whole life, and when you get that job you have to be like 30, so I think definitely, yeah, it’s hard,” said Valentine. Students like Valentine, who are going into fields with lower average pay report anxiety because of the financial instability in their futures.
Valentine said, “It’s very apparent to everybody that it’s gonna be a struggle for me, which is a lot of pressure because I feel like once I graduate, all eyes are going to be on me and how much I’m making instead of what I’m doing creatively.”
Valentine also reported that financial stresses often come from online, which she said is why the younger generation is so affected.
“I think there’s this clout culture on the internet…this subculture of financial status puts a lot of pressure on younger generations to try to achieve that same level of financial status as those influencers and celebrities when it’s unattainable,” she said.
Valentine said she hopes other students don’t fall into the trap of ‘clout culture.’ She said, “I do think that unfortunately what’s popular is always going to be what’s expensive.” She said money is a big issue on young people’s minds, and will continue to be throughout the future.
Other students, like Emory University student Jayden Davis, think that family members sway financial opinions. Davis said, “My mother doesn’t like the fact that I am trying to be a film major.” He explained the mindset of his mother by saying, “The older generation are already in the workforce, enforcing this idea that you need to go to college to make money.”
While students have different ideas about where these pressures come from, they are in agreement that finances are part of the cause.