As a college student, "free" is one of the best words to hear. Free food or free shirts are enticing enough to convince us to attend meetings or events. Popular presidential candidate and the subject of many millennial memes Bernie Sanders, attracted many of his young supporters with something free: college. This fall I had to take out my first student loans and begin my descent into student debt, but I'm okay with that and here's why.

As a student in high school, I worked hard to receive high grades each semester and maintain a GPA that would allow me to be eligible for scholarships. Almost all of the scholarships I ended up with were scholarships that anyone with my GPA and ACT score could receive. This means that most successful high school students should be able to plan on being rewarded by their college with financial aid for being academically promising students.

If a student is not doing well in high school, chances are they will not do well in college. If anyone is allowed to go to college for free, including these less than desirable students, it is a worry that the value of a college degree will decrease. With everyone receiving a Bachelor's degree, we will have to come up with higher levels of education to distinguish different levels of education.

In addition to scholarships offered by the collegiate institution of your choice, there are also many state and local scholarships available. Many of these scholarships only require you to fill out an application and write a brief personal statement. This shows that there is already a lot of free money out there for students if they are willing to put in the effort to receive it. Scholarships like this also do a good job of making sure worthy students are provided with them by keeping in touch with the students and requesting a transcript of their grades every semester.

Lastly, instead of spending government money on collegiate education, it should be going to elementary and high schools, allowing them to continue funding as many diverse programs as they can. When funding is cut for schools, the first place they take money from is extracurriculars. During elementary and high school, children should be participating in as many activities as they can in order to find out what they like and possibly want to spend the rest of their life doing. By the time you get to college, you should at least have it narrowed down to a few passions that you want to further pursue.

Paying for college is not something that I dread doing, I consider it a privilege. Not so long ago, women and minorities were not even allowed to attend college, regardless of if they had the money or not. I am proud to have worked hard enough to get to this point academically and don't plan to stop my education anytime soon, even if that means I have to pay for it a little.