The future scares me.  More than I can really describe in this article.  The fact of it all is that the decisions I make now at age 17 are decisions that will affect the rest of my entire life.  The college I chose, the major I decide on, the amount of debt I fall into — these aren’t tiny things.  Every single senior right now is going through this same ordeal, trying to figure out the balance of what’s worth it.

This Valentine’s Day, The White House gave every struggling senior a little bit of help.  A new website (which isn’t the first of its kind but is the first from the government) invites students to search for colleges that fit their own criteria.  Options for location, majors, future plans, and college experience are all available for prospective college attendees to pick from.  After going through that College Scorecard offers a list of colleges that fit.  After that, the website takes a turn.

The actual goal of the College Scorecard is to offer up financial estimates.  They take average aid and loans that do not have to be paid back and give an idea of how much any student would pay.  The percentage of freshman who actually go on to graduate from the school is shown, which helps to know if students are usually happy.  And perhaps the most important statistic given is the percentage of students who default on their loans.  That percent, on average in the US, is 13.4, which means that more than one in ten college graduates are unable to pay back the money they borrowed to get an education.

The fact of the matter is that college is going to put me into debt.  Let’s be real here, my dream school costs $45,000 per year to attend if I include room and board.  That’s a small liberal arts college that offers the exact programs I want, in the exact environment I want.  Everybody has a school like this, one that you can just see yourself at.  According to College Scorecard, that amount goes down to about $29,000 after loans and scholarships, which sort of gives me some relief.

Either way, most college-bound students are setting their lives up for a 15 year ordeal of payments, and I will be as well if I go where I want. We students are given a very simple choice: go to schools that are well below our potential and get big scholarships from them or spend the rest of our early to mid adulthood wallowing in debt.

I know that sounds grim, but in the end it’s down to students to decide if the education from that special and pricey school is worth going into debt over.  And then apply for scholarships, FAFSA or The CSS Profile, and honestly, just get a job.