By Brynn WhiteI think that it goes without saying that college is expensive and that it can be an obstacle to finish school without adequate funding. Sure there are scholarships, loans, and more scholarships for the academic elite with high GPA’s and athletes. But where does that leave everyone else who wasn’t born into wealth, have athletic genes, or any other innate ability that gives me access to funds ?
College girls and some young men are turning to sugaring. “Sugaring” is considered a mutually beneficial relationship between the young and attractive with a wealthy mature man or woman. It is uncharted territory and many of called it modern prostitution, but there is no denying that there are some very obvious benefits. Many “sugar babies” (college students) are offered base allowances of $2,500 per month for a once a week meetup. The process of finding a sugar daddy or mamma has become increasingly easier in the age of social media type platforms. Websites like Seeking Arrangements and Sugar Daddies allow for people to communicate online and view each other’s profiles. The wealthy counterparts must pay a fee to belong on the site and some are background checked and verified. On the profile it displays their yearly income, net worth, and describes the type of relationship that they are seeking out. Now, you may be asking yourself, how is this even remotely legal? Well, as long as the sugar babies are being paid for services outside of sex, it isn’t considered prostitution. As long as you are 18 years old or older, it is perfectly legal. Whether it is ethical or not is a whole other question. Many of these wealthy counterparts in the equation are married and some are explicit about over sexualizing the woman. I decided to do a bit of an experiment to see what this was about. So, with an older friend’s permission, I built a profile around her using her pictures and a bio that I thought best describes her and her best attributes. Within hours being on the site, her profile was viewed several times and she received several messages offering her monthly allowances between $3,500- $6,000 for weekly visits. This didn’t include any additional pampering and gifts. It seems like “easy” money depending on the type of relationship that you have both agreed upon. But at what cost? Women are now more than ever being seen as simply sexual objects that can be enticed by money. Currently, there is estimated to be over 1 million college girls and boys involved in a sugaring relationship. So who is to blame? The wealthy men and women? Universities and colleges for such outrageous tuition? To be honest, I think that everyone plays a part in this equation. No one person can be held responsible for a system that is corrupt and quite off-centered. My advice to anyone who is pursuing this option is to tread lightly. You are diving into murky waters that can be dangerous. By Elizabeth ResendizRecently, the sophomore class at Rangeview High School was visited by
a representative from Herff Jones with information on class rings for the class of 2018. A class ring is a ring specially designed for a student’s school. Each student is able to customize a ring to fit them specifically, and because of this, each class ring is special. Class rings connect schools and classmates, and symbolize the completion of one step of your journey, in this case, high school, and the memories you will keep from that chapter in your life. Besides the excitement from getting to design my own class ring, the whole thing really got me thinking. A class ring is a tangible reminder of our high school experiences, a link between our past and our future. Even when we leave high school, the memories of our time in it will remain for years and years to come. For better or worse, this part of our lives shapes us forever. Before we know it, high school will be gone forever, seen only in our class ring and memories. Friends and interests will change, others will stay exactly the same, and all the while time will continue passing us by. High school is truly an experience to be treasured and lived while we still can. Not everything from high school will last, but it will never completely fade from us, either. By Angel WrightSenior year of highschool is so pressure filled. Its not the part about getting into college
that I am worried about, its the part where I have to pay up more money than I have ever seen in my life. College is so expensive and one thing that family members keep trying to shove down my throat is that I don’t want to go into debt. That is something I obviously want to avoid, but it seems so inevitable . You have to be the best of the best to get the scholarships that help you avoid having to pay a single dime when it comes to tuition and board. Along with being the best of the best is a financial need that has to be proven my financial documents. If your parents make too much money to qualify for the financial based scholarships, but not enough to actually provide any contribution a person is pretty much on their own at that point. So when you’re not the best of the best and you have the weighing pressure of how do I pay for a decent education a few ideas begin to leak into one’s mind. One idea is spend your last high school career mindlessly filling out applications and trying to claim the money that so many financial advisors say is out there. There are also financial advisors who say that is not the right way to go and to only consider a select few. Money seems unreachable and debt looks likes its the only option. Education comes at a very high price and so many people out there want it. To compete with the best of the best is tiresome. A car payment is what the debt of college can gain you, only you don’t get the car in the end. Instead you get a degree, and that if you have no prior work experience in the field you’re searching for it can become nearly impossible to get hired. It is a very time consuming thought of having to pay for college. Yet, I often wander into thought of the possibilities that can happen once I go through the college experience. So many amazing things can be learned and introduced to me. Passions and inspirations may be thrown my way in a storm that would not be possible without that car payment of debt. I hate to think that money is the only thing holding me back from those experiences. So whether I like it or not, I’ll sit day after day listening to the educated financial advisors searching for a way to pay for college. I think searching for money to go to school is closest I’ll get to understanding not having primary and secondary school readily available for children in other countries. Though I know in my search, I ‘ll probably never fully understand it. by Angel WrightThe new school year is about to start, for me its my senior year and my fourth high school. I am currently preparing for Link Crew where I will be working with freshmen on their first day of school. My goal while working with these freshmen is to try and provide a safe and fun introduction into a new environment. New environments differ from wherever you go and from my own personal experience high schools can have major differences, even though it is set with the same outcome of graduating and gaining a post secondary education.
Freshman year at my first high school in Tuscon was unique in the sense that I had roots there. This was due to my brothers own educational journey. At that time he had his own truck and drove us. He had helped me figure out where my first class was but then he left me to rejoice with his friends. There was no Link crew and I stumbled through the school clueless until I ran into someone familiar who had the same class that I did. As the year went on I became used to the system of hearing a faint voice talk about our school news. I paid no attention because school spirit was only relevant one day a year when we played football against our rival school. The only clubs that were offered were during lunch, and I decided not to leave my friends to join a club that often times lasted only a month. There were options for clubs and sports but you had to search for them and at that point I just didn’t know about them. I wish I had as I might have wanted to stay when I left for my second high school. At my second high school in Colorado the grades went from tenth to twelfth so I was subjected to being a freshman yet again. Mostly everyone had known each other because they went to the middle school just a few hundred feet away from the high school. This time around I had no older brother to guide me to class but I had to maneuver through a small school with hidden classrooms and filled hallways. I remember being surrounded by students who lacked diversity and who had lived a small town kind of life. This small town life seemed to be fun and have perks if you lived there all your life or if you had a sibling that once attended the school then someone was going to greet you with excitement. The first semester I did join a couple of clubs that were also held during lunch because one of my eager friend’s urged me to. I’m glad I had someone to help push me into doing things at school that really benefitted me. One thing that shocked me was that the teacher here cared about all of their students and even invited conversation on a regular basis about grades and tutoring. I did have good teachers at my first school but it wasn’t the same. They were there for the day not the student. Although I was more involved, I was unhappy. I am sure now had I stayed I might have gotten on board and befriended many of the students who would be in my small graduating class. My father was the reason we moved to Colorado in the first place but after we moved he was given a delayed promotion in Denver which was four hours away. I would have to move mid second semester of sophomore year. So there I was landing back in Tucson planning to stay with my grandmother and attend my first high school once again. I had enrolled there and hated it within a week. The material was completely different in every class I took and the teachers only directed their attention for a moment saying I would catch up in no time. I wound up enrolling in an alternative high school just down the street from my house. My cousin had been going there and I thought I would give it a try. This was the kind of school where you sit at a computer for five hours a day and do your classes online with a teacher on site for that subject. I truly believe this is a good alternative for those motivated to get through their schooling faster, but I happened to be unmotivated and this led me to slack in areas I would normally try my hardest in. When it was time to be reunited with my parents I was ready to go somewhere new. Now my fourth high school for my junior year was different; it was the biggest I had ever been to as the halls were jam packed and difficult to get through. On the first day you only go to your first two classes then to a school wide assembly. I made two friends within those first couple hours who I am very close with now and I was also introduced to the school's tradition of introducing the freshmen and celebrating the seniors. I have never seen school spirit so vibrant at nine o’clock in the morning and from there on everything started to click. When I had met my counselor a few days earlier I would have never expected to be so involved in the club she ran or be waking up at four in the morning so we could go help facilitate for a marathon. The teachers here had so much passion and even more dedication to their students and this truly made me feel welcome. One more semester at my fourth and favorite school will be the longest I have ever attended throughout my high school education. Graduating from this school is going to be my happy ever after for my high school education and I am grabbing every opportunity it offers. The thing about new environments is that they can be uncomfortable or have an unforeseen great welcoming. Either way the best you’re gonna get from it is what you pull from it and it may sound cheesy but its true. It took me a long time to get used to the change of new high schools, but now that I have I appreciate everything that they were able to give me. Without change and meeting new people almost on a constant basis I probably wouldn't be as comfortable as I am now being myself. Being in a new environment only means having more options. |
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