We live in a society where a college education is not a privilege but rather an expectation in order to get a "good" job. You can rarely do what you want without a piece of paper that passes as a certificate that yes, indeed, I lost sleep for 4 years (or longer), chugged caffeine to stay alive, and had mental breakdowns weekly in order to achieve.

Then you spend months job searching, really wanting to beg your potential new employer for any job, really, because the crippling amount of student loans is enough to fill the entire Atlantic ocean and you aren't just swimming in it anymore, you are drowning because you lost your life vest and there is no rescue boat.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? Besides the fact that I am clearly writing in a caffeine-induced frenzy, I think I hit on some really good points that need to be discussed. I won't dive into stress or life of a college student because I've already tackled those topics in other articles.

However, I would like to discuss the fact that a college education is an expectation, practically a requirement to get a "good" job, yet the amount of money to get a college education is absurd.

I am 20-year-old English major. I am currently in my junior year of college. And I have this crippling anxiety of the student loans that have begun to cut off my oxygen and slowly suffocate me. I want a higher level education (it is a blessing I, as an American woman, am thankful for every single day) however, I also recognize it's a necessity in our society. Without a college degree, I know I would not be able to get the job I want.

And yet, even though a college degree has become a necessity in our society, the prices continue to skyrocket. They ask what your parent's income is, provide little scholarship money to alleviate the burden of tuition, and anticipate that you will have the check cut in time for a $50,000 school year (although this is not the price of my particular school, I know many friends who are paying this amount yearly).

I'm not trying to toot my own horn here. But I'm a straight A student and I scored well on the SATs, with leadership and work experience, so please don't tell me I could have gotten more scholarship money if I better applied myself.

Rather, I'm arguing that for one second let's talk about how not everyone's parents can afford to pay for their children's (yes, MOST parents have more than one child, FAFSA!) college education. Let's talk about that in order to pay for college education myself, I would need to work approximately 17 hours a day every day of the week to be debt free (or work UPS every night from 10pm - 6 am {God bless you souls}). Let's talk about how it will take me approximately eight years to pay off this "necessity."

Yearly tuition costs more than the amount of food a family of six eats yearly. It costs more than most people pay on their mortgage yearly. It costs more than electric bills and water bills and whatever other necessity bills we pay annually.

College education should be affordable.

College education should be attainable.

If we, as a society, want to recognize college education as a necessity then we need to stop treating it like a privilege.