Going Broke for Graduation

"For many people, prom is the most expensive part of senior year..."

By Deirdre Gibson
May 25, 2007

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The cost of college is not necessarily the main financial concern for seniors in low-income areas such as Whitesburg, Kentucky. Instead many students are worried about just having enough money to make it through their final year of high school. Deirdre Gibson explains how the high price of making prom and other celebrations unforgettable events leaves many students flat broke.

The median income where I live in Whitesburg, Kentucky is only about twenty four thousand dollars. And almost a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.

A lot of high school seniors like me are going broke paying for all the things that are supposed to be part of senior year. Just ask Amber Watts.

AMBER WATTS (on tape)
It’s hard because at school they always talk about if you’re on a fixed income and you have reduced lunch, they are going to pay for you to take a test, or they are going to pay for you to do this, and all your activities are free. If you’re on a fixed income and you go to prom, it’s a completely different story. You’re going to have to pay just as much as everyone else does. And that’s not fair.

DEIRDRE
For many people, prom is the most expensive part of senior year, so a lot of my classmates skip prom. Those who go can spend more than a thousand dollars, and half of that on a dress. But that can get you into awkward situations like selling knife sets and cookie dough door-to-door.

AMBER WATTS (on tape)
It’s a lot. It is a lot of money. You’re thinking – how am I going to get it? What’s going to happen? I’m going to go into debt because of prom? It’s just a complete stress causer.

DEIRDRE
Besides that, there’s no way to avoid all the graduation momentos. You have to pay to even walk down the aisle at graduation, a cap and gown is mandatory. They add up to 22 dollars and you have to buy them. It seems like every week our school is trying to sell you something.

AUTUMN CAMPBELL (on tape)
Senior books, senior cups, senior picture frames, friends things, memorabilia, thank you cards to your parents, envelopes, the pretty tassle, that hangs in your car...

DEIRDRE
That’s my friend Autumn Campbell. Her dad is so excited for her to graduate he is offering to pay for all of her graduation memorabilia, even though money is tight.

AUTUMN CAMPBELL (on tape)
I don’t know how the parents afford it. I really don’t. A lot of times the parents will just scrape up the money to get them to go so they don’t have to be like them when they were little and they never got to do anything because they didn’t have any money. So they scrape by so their kids get to go.

BRENDA CHANEY (on tape)
This is huge.

DEIRDRE
Parents like Brenda Chaney sometimes get more caught up in the senior year spirit than their kids.

BRENDA CHANEY (on tape)
I think that we, after having life experiences, understand. We all say, “If I could just go back and be at that point in our life...the things I would do different.” We after struggling financially, struggling in jobs that maybe we aren’t as happy in, etc... We understand the importance of it, where I don’t think our 17 and 18-year-olds do.

DEIRDRE
My friends and I joke prom and graduation are just practice for your wedding. People think that it’s worth paying for. But is it really worth it?

AUTUMN CAMPBELL (on tape)
You do not enjoy your senior year. Not here at least.

DEIRDRE
Autumn says senior year is more of a reality check than a special time...

AUTUMN CAMPBELL (on tape)
They give you two to three weeks to settle in, and then bam, you’ve got to think about college...college, college, college...they talk about prom, they talk about graduation. It is non-stop all year.

DEIRDRE
And many of us don’t have time to enjoy the memories we are paying to make. I asked Rachel Chaney who graduated last year whether she thought all the stress and money was worth it...

RACHEL CHANEY (on tape)
I was dreading graduation and I was valedictorian and I had to give a speech. And the day before I said, "I’m not going." My mom had to call someone at the school to convince me to go. It wasn’t horrible, but I thought it was a waste of money.

DEIRDRE
The problem is, you’ll never know if going broke your senior year was a waste of money until you look back on it.

- Deirdre Gibson graduates today. She’ll be the first in her family to go to college. She’s a reporter at the Appalachian Media Institute. Her story was produced by Youth Radio.