What would you do with $800? Some people might treat themselves, invest it or even save it, but for seniors, that money is only enough to make it through senior year.

Senior year is the most memorable year of high school, where students do all the stereotypical enjoyable activities–prom, Grad Bash and graduation. However, having fun costs a lot of money. Seniors have to pay for everything from parking passes to prom tickets, and a lot more along the way. Figuring out where all the money is coming from can be challenging.

It’s a lot

Seniors know that the year will be expensive, but few expect it to be this expensive. Some costs, like college applications, are expected. However, other costs were a surprise to students, like Grad Bash’s $120 ticket, which includes bus transportation to the theme park and for students’ tickets.

“Definitely Grad Bash [was a surprise], because I wasn’t really expecting it to be that much,” senior Braxton Humm said. “I still have to purchase my cap and gown and all that. It all really adds up…it’s like 500 for all that stuff.”

While some costs are not educational or required for graduation–like prom and field trips—these events are fun activities that students look forward to as a rite of passage during their senior year. Events like prom are not just milestones for senior year, but a destination many students look forward to from middle school. Since people have been looking forward to it their whole life, they feel as if they need to do it.

“You don’t need to do any of this. But it just feels like…everyone’s doing this, so I should do this too,” senior Antonio Pizza said. “Everyone has this emotional feeling that ‘This is my last time, so I want to do everything.’”

I’m outta here 

Graduation is the most important event of senior year, at least to parents. Dues, cords, and stoles are some additional costs that students have to buy on top of their caps and gowns for graduation. Stoles and cords are for honor societies and extracurriculars, an outward expression of students’ dedication over the four years of high school. The overall amount of money spent on these extra things are dependent on the amount of clubs students participated in.

Another cost that surprised students was for caps and gowns, and then add to that the cost of any honor society cords that students wear to graduation.

“We’re reaching into that season where you have to buy a chord for each honor society,” Pizza said. “So they hit you all at once with all the cords and stuff.”

But seniors have educational expenses that are more than just graduation. For those going to college, an entirely different set of costs have to be paid. They can pay up to $100 on one application, not including SAT/ACT score sends, trips to tour colleges and more. In addition, most students send multiple college applications, driving up the costs.

If students want to go away from home for college, which the majority do, they would have to put a down payment for a dorm for at least their freshman year of college. Living space, food and transportation are just the basic costs a student in college would have to start paying.

Who’s gonna pay for this?

Most seniors know that their last year will be expensive, and some started organizing how they were going to pay for it before they started to pile up, giving them more financial flexibility. One way they prepared for these costs was budgeting.

“What helped [my family] best was writing down everything that was going to cost money and then leaving aside money in paychecks to buy it so we wouldn’t be struggling to pay at the last minute,” senior Tracelyn Witsell said.

Many due dates are close together, leaving  families little time to recover from the amount of money they just spent. For some families, a few hundred bucks might be easy to come up with, but for others, it is difficult to spend hundreds of dollars back-to-back. 

“I get paid at the beginning of the month, so I have to spread that money thin, and I just try to budget carefully,” senior Adaara Alli said.

One thing that makes budgeting for senior year challenging are all the different due dates. Although it is easier to pay things at different times than all at once, seniors still have to remember every date that something is due. Seniors have to worry about school work, graduation, and due dates, giving them little rest. 

 “I have recently got a part time job of coaching a volleyball team so I can start paying for my own expenses,”  Alli said.

Often, parents will pay part of the costs, but seniors have to make up the difference, and the most common way to do this is with a part-time job. Seniors find work at restaurants, retail stores and more.

Pizza has been working at I9, a recreational sports center, for over a year. He used to coach soccer for kids ages 5-14, but now works front desk.

“I got a job to pay for other things. So my parents wouldn’t have to spread money as thin,” Pizza said.

 However, not all students can provide money for the costs. The majority of students have activities outside of school, making them unable to get a job and help their parents pay. 

“High school mixed with three dual enrollment classes, extracurriculars, and donating has left me with not a lot of free time and a non flexible schedule for a job,” Witsell said.

Help is on the way

Although many students question why these prices are so high, assistant principal Christy Tibbits-Bryce attributes it to the current state of the economy. Hagerty only charges students as much as it costs to hold the event–for example, renting the graduation arena was around $21,000, with all the money collected from graduation tickets going to those rental costs. In addition, Tibbits-Bryce notes Hagerty has the lowest senior costs in the district.

“We try to make them as affordable as we can. Unfortunately, the cost of everything has gone up. So we kind of have to keep up with that. There’s no money set aside [except] to pay,” Tibbits-Bryce said.

The school does not just exclude seniors who cannot afford to pay for all these costs. PTSA focuses mainly on helping students with graduation costs before they help them pay for the more fun and social costs. Students can find out more by contacting Tibbits-Bryce at [email protected].

“The PTSA has funds set aside to help students in need with cap and gown prom tickets,” Tibbits-Bryce said. “We don’t exclude anyone from doing anything if they can’t afford it, we find a way to help them be able to do everything.”