For some, seeing QuikTrip list gas at almost $4 a gallon is an annoyance, but for the majority, it’s life-altering.
It seems ridiculous to say the price of gasoline could completely change the way a person lives, but in a state without reliable public transportation, it’s our reality.
The average commuter college student works a part-time job, and a lot of us work two. We’re doing a lot more than just getting to and from campus.
It’s fair to say that most of us drive well over 20 miles a day, but to keep it simple, let’s just say the average is 20. The cars students drive get roughly 25 miles or less per gallon, meaning in one day we probably use one gallon of gas.
Every day we spend about $4 to drive. In a week, it’s almost $30. The money burning as we commute could have paid for groceries or, God forbid, something nice for ourselves.
Is it childish for a young person to complain about that? No, it’s not.
Millennials and Gen Zs have been told they complain too much from a bunch of adults who had it fairly easy growing up. Listening to the stories of what anyone over the age 40 got to do in their free time at our age is exhausting when we’ve been managing accelerated courses, standardized testing and college prep since we were 8.
A lot of us have never been on a plane, let alone traveled outside the state. Stuck in DFW for over 20 years, unable to afford those luxuries,we’ve never felt the ocean’s current or dipped our toes in a non-manmade lake.
But our SAT scores landed us the grand opportunity to attend a university that we also couldn’t afford.
Every generation suffers in some way, but it seems any time our generation speaks about food insecurity, inflation and gas prices, we’re told to stop complaining. That these things are a part of life and we need to learn how to manage living with them.
However, this comes from the mouths of people who own homes, travel and live off comfortable salaries.
While the price of survival has gone up for everyone, we kids haven’t been given the opportunity to even live yet. So, of course buckling down to deal with a recession hits us a bit harder.
Some of us are in Afterpay debt because we wanted to see one of our favorite performers live in concert and one ticket was $200. Others haven’t done anything nice for themselves in a long time because they simply can’t afford it. Then the rest are still living at home, embarrassed to admit they can’t even afford an apartment.
This isn’t a plea for us to have more fun. It’s a cry for adults to understand.
Today the price of gas will make us decide to reconsider small purchases, but the long-term effect will completely rewrite our future decisions.
Maybe telling us we could be anything as kids wasn’t the best form of parenting, but we can’t change how we were raised. As adults, many of us are facing the fact that our childhood dreams will remain just that, a dream.
Now, we dream of things this country used to consider a normal life, all while we can barely afford the gas we need to achieve it.
Instead of telling young adults to grow up, realize the position we’re in and try to empathize with what $4 a gallon actually means for us.
Because while it’s easy to argue we shouldn’t buy a latte to save money on gas, that latte is the equivalent to a vacation.
