College is a massive milestone in a young adult’s development. It’s the first taste of freedom our parents give us, and nothing controls us anymore except one thing—money.

The constant billing never seems to stop. A new fee appears daily, leaving students like me stressed and wondering if we’ll have any money left after four years.

Money was my biggest enemy when applying to college—every application cost between $50 and $75. Even the University of Kentucky, my safety school, the school I could see out my childhood bedroom window, was becoming too expensive. 

If UK wants to continue growing, it must care about the financial well-being of its students instead of focusing too much on profiting from them with these exorbitant prices.

While many of us dream of starting a new life far away from home, the cost of college holds that dream just out of our grasp due to the constantly rising costs of tuition, which has increased almost 200% since 1963, according to the Education Data Initiative.

The cost of a college education doesn’t end after tuition and applications; several additional fees are added.

Each new semester, students are required to buy the necessary materials for all their classes, in addition to the thousands already spent on housing, meal plans and tuition. According to the Education Data Initiative, one in five students is in severe debt after graduation.

At UK, students’ pockets are ripped open by the university each semester as they take thousands of dollars without clarity on where the money is going.

The average student pays from $6,751 (Resident) to $17,070 (Non-Resident) in tuition alone, then up to $1,412 per credit hour, according to the UK Student Account Services.

For the six foreign language credits required to graduate from the university with a Bachelor of Arts degree, many students choose Spanish. However, according to Vista Higher Learning, where UK gets their textbooks from, most textbooks within the Hispanic studies department begin at $99 for just five months of access to the virtual textbook.

This does not include the hundreds of dollars in mandatory fees that the university charges each student. These fees are listed in each student’s financial overview; for me, as a freshman, they are $696.50 and the university does not explain why we are charged these fees or where our money goes.

For many, these additional fees may be considered part of the average college experience. However, according to USnews, UK is, on average, more expensive than other colleges nationwide.

“Compared with the national average cost of in-state tuition of $12,201, University of Kentucky is more expensive,” USnews said.

While these extra costs and fees may be considered typical for colleges, surrounding universities, such as the University of Louisville, use a program called Follett Access to give their students discounted materials and textbooks, according to Louisville’s Office of the Provost. 

Noah Cameron, a freshman and a communication major at the University of Louisville, dreamed of attending UK’s Communication program.

“I wanted to be a part of that world more than anything,” Cameron said.

Cameron did all the work to prepare, attending the Governor’s Scholars Program and maintaining a 3.8 GPA through high school. However, even after receiving scholarships, he couldn’t afford to attend the college of his dreams.

“It became severely unmanageable for someone of my background and my funding, and I had to write off going to UK,” Cameron said.

Due to the unexplained fees and higher tuition rates, UK has become highly unrealistic for students like Cameron, who have had to give up on their goal of attending UK.

This is precisely why UK needs to stop ripping money out of its students’ pockets if it wants to keep growing—not only in class sizes, but as a university.