Sound Off: The Price of Graduation

You’ve been waiting for this moment ever since the start of your high-school career: grad.

It’s an exciting time, of course, but have you ever actually stepped back and looked at the cost to graduate? For many people in our society, graduation is the biggest thing next to one’s wedding.

And let me tell you, some people go all out for this one-day event. We’re talking not only limos, but people going to such lengths as renting sports cars to show up to their special night.

Now, being a girl, it is exceptionally more expensive to look good or fit into the rest of the crowd at grad. The average girl goes through this process to get ready for grad: buying a prom dress, getting her hair and makeup professionally done and paying for fake nails and tanning.

I thought about this process very carefully, and when I estimate an average cost for all these things, the total cost is about $1,100, and that’s being pretty frugal.

I stepped back after I looked at that number and thought, “Wow! That is an absurdly large amount of money for one night.” However, you could argue that we, as grads, have worked long enough to deserve our own very expensive night.

But do we really have to be so materialistic about the whole celebration? Is it really necessary in tough economic times to purchase a dress worth more than my last two paycheques combined?

In my opinion, I find it rather sad that at the end of our long years in high school, we have chosen to celebrate by spending outrageous amounts of money on such trivial things.