Seniors at Wauwatosa West who are continuing their education are making plans for paying for school. According to the Center for American Progress the cost of acquiring a degree has increased by 1,000 percent in the past three decades, and this means that students graduating with a four-year bachelor’s degree are saddled with an average of $25,000 of student loan debt. This leaves high school students with the tough question of how to pay for college.

“I’m scared of being in debt, I’m going to be paying $48,000 and that’s a lot,” says senior Jon Doolen. Doolen plans on attending UW-Whitewater for four years and is expecting to be paying for college mostly by himself. More students are finding themselves in this situation because the rapidly increasing tuition leaves families not being able to rely solely on scholarships and grants.

However, senior Alaina Abplanalp’s parents plan on paying for the majority of her tuition at Kansas City Art Institute, with a hope of a small amount of student loans. Tuition changes some students perspective on where they plan on attending.

“I was shocked to see how low my tuition was, I thought it was going to cost way more,” says senior Eric Schoessow.

Schoessow is attending WCTC in the fall and plans on taking out student loans with only a small percentage of his tuition being covered by financial aid. Another senior, John Syburg, plans on attending UW-Madison in the fall, and he’s happy about how low his tuition is compared with the costs of out-of-state colleges.

“You’re getting what you’re paying for [at UW-Madison] and it will be easy to pay off, you just have to work hard while you’re in and get out,” says Syburg.

Tosa West Guidance Counselor Brian Hoffman says, “statistically more students are turning to loans and there are so many loans, interest rates are going up, leaving more students in debt as they leave college.” With college tuition increasing, students are also sometimes forced to ask themselves if their “dream school” is in their price range.

“It’s always incredibly disappointing to see a student get accepted into their dream school only to realize that it will cost too much money,” says Hoffman. If there was any advice Hoffman would give students about paying for college, it would be that as a freshman in high school it is important to discuss with parents how to pay for college .