It’s Spring Break, which means no school, vacations, and relaxation. It’s good to get away from the stress of academic life and just hang out, but in recent years an interesting phenomenon has developed. Spring Break has become mythical, spoken of in hushed voices and awed tones. Spring Break has become the focal point for many people’s year; they spend time and money planning for it, waiting for the week of freedom. This growing importance in Spring Break and its effect on students, while understandable, is becoming increasingly bombastic and over-the-top. While not the best movie, the recent “Spring Breakers” highlights this growing fascination, making Spring Break this pseudo-religious event and reducing its participants into slavering worshippers. And looking at the facts and figures around us, we can better understand this trend, and its negative consequences on students.
The biggest problem with Spring Break is the financial aspect. The commonplace but nevertheless true stereotype about college students being poor is a standard refrain throughout the year. The costs of living, food, health, and not to mention tuition pile up over the years and in the distance looms the bills to be paid in the near future. But like clockwork, every Spring Break, money appears to pay for trips to the beach or adventures across the country. Not just hundreds of dollars, mind; one article claims that if done correctly, a trip to Cancun can be $1700. Travel prices also increase, as a study from last year saw the price of domestic air flights increasing by nine percent, and a seven percent increase in international flights, ranging from $372 to $782 respectively. And the Spring Break hot spots fill quickly; hotels and local businesses become swarmed by students, as they all frantically rush to get to wherever they’re going.
Now, a practical defense for the finances of Spring Break could follow students saving money up and managing their money in order to afford the best Spring Break possible, which there is nothing wrong with. And a lot of students simply want a break from the constant stress of school, which again is understandable. But where things get messy is if students are saving thousands of dollars just to go someplace and party, what does that say about our priorities? It’s much cheaper and less stressful to simply go home, or remain in your living area, than to blow a ton of cash for a week of partying. While students are slaving to make sure they have enough money for Spring Break, planning weeks in advance, not to mention doing the necessary social prerequisites such as getting in enough shape to look good in a bikini for at least a week, serious time and money is being thrown at something that only lasts for a short time and is expensive in the face of paying for education.
It’s completely all right for someone to go on vacation and to relax and forget about the stress of school. But when that vacation becomes the sole focus of the year, and money needed for necessities is used for a week of excess, then that is where serious considerations about our motivations and goals need to be raised. Spring Break is a blessing for the time away we get to spend with family and friends, recuperate after exhausting school work, and to remove oneself from the hustle and bustle of college life. But we have to come back to the fact, no matter what major we’re in or for what reasons we are in college in the first place, the education comes first. And if students are blowing large amounts of money just to relax, then we probably need to come to grips with just how important our education is to us.