A study by Visa pegs average prom spending at more than $1,100 per student.
Senior photo sessions and prints run into the hundreds of dollars. Yearbooks and class rings add hundreds. Graduation announcements, tickets, caps and gowns all add to the costs.
So much is being spent on extras when parents and students should be saving for college.
Meanwhile, I have to wonder: Is all this self-celebration healthy? Adolescents are self-centered by nature, obsessed with their growth, their looks, their social status and their futures.
For today’s selfie generation, constantly refining and advertising their brands on multiple social media platforms, the self-focus is especially intense. If anything, schools should be pushing against this trend, pulling students away from the mirror and training their attention on the outside world.
Another obsession is the pressure to find one college that’s perfect for you, boost SAT scores, enhance applications with extracurricular activities and polish application essays to a fine sheen.
Between SAT prep classes, application fees and trips to visit faraway campuses, this too gets expensive.
Meanwhile, lots of 18-year-olds aren’t ready for college. They don’t know what they want to learn or do with their lives, so they follow the crowd to college. They choose their school based on its campus, its sports teams or its frat parties.
They’d be better off spending the year after high school holding down a job, traveling the world, living on their own, joining the military or engaged in community service.
Studies show today’s young people are doing well by many measures. Surveys find declines in drug use, tobacco use, alcohol use, sexual intercourse and bullying.
But teen stress is on the rise.
Lots of factors contribute to stress, but I wonder what turning the senior prom into the most important event in a young person’s life does to the kid who can’t get a date or afford a new dress.
What do all those people celebrating college acceptances say to the kid whose parents couldn’t afford to apply to 20 schools, or who isn’t sure he’s ready for college?
May the sun shine on all the graduation parties for the class of 2015. But we might be doing a favor to all the classes to come if we could ratchet down the celebrations, the hype, the pressure and stress of senior year.
Rick Holmes writes for GateHouse Media and the MetroWest Daily News. Reach him at rholmes@wickedlocal.com.
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HOLMES: Ratchet down Class of 2015's celebrations, hype and stress