As students, we have the perfect schedule. We go to class at whatever hours we pick and choose. We may not have class on Monday or Friday, which gives us a three to four day weekend every week.

We have the perfect life. We always have a friend to hang out with or a party or a concert or a game to attend. We can stay up late and sleep in without anyone telling us to get out of bed or do our homework, although, it would probably be in our best interest to do both.

So what is making the perfect life of the student something less than perfect?

The economy.

This economy – well, there is really no way to sugar coat it – it’s the pits. From making it difficult to get the loans we need to requiring us to take out more loans than ever before, it is making what would be a perfect life a little more flawed.

According to USA Today, the average student is cutting back their spending on “apparel, electronics, dorm furnishings and food items this year” and plans to spend an average of $808.71 instead of last year’s $835.73.

However, the expense of many back-to-school items is unnecessary and, therefore, this number can be shaved back even more.

The best advice for incoming freshman is to talk to a student you know and ask them what the average student usually needs. Resist the urge to overbuy and see through the tempting marketing ploys.

With so many budget cuts and the like, many scholarships have also been cut or divvied up into smaller amounts in an attempt to help more students. This, however, has created problems for those  who had counted on that money to help make ends meet when it came time to pay our tuition. Not to mention, worrying about being able to pay that tuition so that students can even attend the college or university of choice, let alone purchase the supplies needed for our education has added to the stress.

On the other hand, the less-than-ideal economy has also driven many students to further their education in order to obtain their master’s, and to stay out of the workforce a while longer. Let’s face it; a dream job may or may not be waiting for students on the other side of graduation. That is the cold, hard truth.

This is the world every student is looking at and, for some, that future is not too far away and it is a very scary place to be entering.

The economy is not at its highest or proudest moment in history. Fact.

The economy is not at its ideal peak for a graduating students to enter into the workforce. Fact.

Here are a couple things some may not have thought of which will bring us some hope: Maybe one of those graduates will see a way out of the state in which we are currently living. If not, our future cannot be quite so bleak when so many of America’s youth are furthering their education far past the point of their ancestors.

And they are doing it in mass quantities.

They are some of the brightest minds of their generation and their future. Maybe then one of them will take a gander at our predicament and bring a fresh perspective or strategy to the plate. So perhaps there is something good to say about this economy. It is pushing us to better ourselves in ways we may not have otherwise done.

It may be the pits, and it may be making our lives slightly less perfect than we always imagined they should be, but it will not always be this way.

Kaylin Ielase is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.