“Senior year is just like any other year of high school.” Wrong. It is so much more expensive compared to junior, sophomore and freshman year and can cost people thousands of dollars. It is more apparent that senior year has way more expenses once you take the typical cost of a year at NDB out of consideration with textbooks, tuition and the school uniform and focus on the additional events included in the last year of high school.
The cost of college plays a huge role in senior year with application fees being around $80 per application, not to mention if you want to tour the school and pay for the flight and hotel. Even once the whole college process is over, the cost still continues to grow. Buying your friends and family college merchandise, for either your school or theirs, becomes less appealing after buying several $50 or more college sweatshirts. Especially at the end of the year when all of the graduation parties commence, the price of getting your friends little gifts can add up to a substantial amount of money.
After spending the entire year going to event after event, there is another price that can get severely high: clothes. Buying a dress for formal and prom is something that seniors are already aware of, especially if they attend both NDB and Serra’s. Something that they aren’t as aware of is how quickly their credit card balance can go down after getting outfits for senior photos, mother/daughter brunch and of course, graduation. If a student chooses to do senior photos, the photographer can be as high as $800 not including the price of the two to three outfits to take the photos in. Every senior has a growing closet full of dresses prepared for the brunch, graduation ceremony, as well as the Baccalaureate mass.
Going back to the beginning of the year, before school even started, parking spots were available for purchase to all of the senior class. The parking spot alone was already pretty pricey, and the painting supplies on top of it just made it more and more expensive. Although some may argue that it was put to good use since they are showcased for the entire year, they are also going to be stripped away for next year’s senior class.
Senior year is already stressful while dealing with college applications and FAFSA, trying to avoid going into too much college debt. On top of it is the debt that senior year puts students in before even getting to college. All of the clothes, all of the senior activities, all of the times you want to splurge because “you’re only in high school once.”
