Editorial, Issue 5 — Volume CVIV

A looming cloud towers over Parker students, an unrelenting undercurrent influencing inter-student interactions: the near certainty that they won’t be able to send their children to Parker. Every year, tuition increases at a higher rate than inflation and the perpetually rising cost of higher education and homeownership will hinder Gen Zers’ chances of financial stability.

The student body’s collective consternation surrounding this rarely-addressed issue instills unyielding anxiety in its members, regardless of socioeconomic status. For some, it encourages them to make the most out of their Parker experience, knowing that they will possibly be the last in their families to attend the school, but, for others, it adds considerable, damaging pressure.

The less affluent the student, the more intense the pressure. Perceptions of Parker alumni’s success is, in large part, connected to the Parker graduate’s ability to send their own children to Parker. This realization, whether conscious or not, strengthens the divide between Parker students.

Parker, seemingly with no intention of cutting costs, has instead decided to raise tuition at increasingly high rates annually. Students’ academic stress has relegated anxiety concerning tuition increases, either involving their own future at Parker or their future children’s ability to attend, to the background. Now as tuition for some grades approaches $40,000+ a year territory, these fears have begun to swim to the surface.

“The Weekly” is far from encouraging students to worry about increasing tuition. However, the role of a student newspaper, like the role of the press in any democracy, is to inform the student body. Being the press in Parker’s democracy in service of the student body, “The Weekly” has an obligation to question and challenge. Hopefully, by shedding light on this point of frustration of the student body, “The Weekly” can give this issue the attention it deserves and finally lift that dangerous looming cloud that towers over Parker students.