Tuition hurts. Even if your family is well off - or you managed to wrangle a full-ride scholarship - tuition is expensive.
For those of us who had no choice but take out student loans, the cost of tuition will follow us for many years after we graduate. If the job market for recent graduates wasn't so bad, maybe we could deal with the cost of college better, but it isn't.
We want to know why Auburn, and college in general, is so damn expensive.
There are more than 25,000 students attending the University.
If each paid the in-state tuition cost, Auburn would bring in approximately $225 million every semester, and $450 million every year.
According to the 2012-2013 summary of revenue, the University also receives approximately $155 million from the State of Alabama - of course, that number is always changing.
So to add it all up, that's approximately $605 million every year, not including the $25,000 out-of-state students pay every semester and the millions the football program rakes in every fall.
Yet, a lot of us are still selling our birth rights just to get a degree, a degree that might not even get us a job.
We understand times are tough. We understand professors need to be paid competitive salaries.
But something needs to change.
When students in other countries, such as Spain and Canada, hear about tuition increases, they protest, which sometimes turn into riots.
It probably isn't a good idea to riot, but a protest is certainly worth our time.
President Gogue's lawn would be the perfect spot to take a stand and let the administration know we are tired of sacrificing so much to gain an education.
The national consensus seems to be education, especially the post-secondary variety, is a privilege. We believe it is a right.
If you want to go to college, you should be able to without having to pay exorbitant amounts of money. You should be able to better yourself without experiencing many years of debt after you graduate.
A flat tuition would be a good start. Books that don't cost your first-born child would be a great next step.
Obviously, the federal government is a long way away from making a college education an affordable option.
But we think Auburn could serve as the perfect example for an institution that values its students more than their wallets.
This is not socialism; this is not a free-hand out. How can we expect to prosper as a nation when we make the means to that prosperity too costly?
It's time we made our voices heard. We are sick and tired of paying inflated tuition, and we are sick of taking on massive amounts of debt just to improve our lives.
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