The High Cost of Spring Break
It has been called a student “rite of passage” but its history can really only be traced back to the late 1930’s. There have been movies made about it, explicit documentaries detailing it — and in the spring, it is constantly in the evening news. Spring Break is so big in some key U.S. cities that they count on it to make their yearly budgets.
The estimate here in the U.S. alone is that students spend $1 Billion during Spring Break. Just to give a little perspective, that is an average of $1,100 per student, per week, which is what the normal family of four spends for an entire month’s groceries. Less than half of that $1,100 goes to transportation and rent. Most of it goes for entertainment, food and alcohol!
But what is the real cost of Spring Break? Yes, the $1 Billion could perhaps be used for better purposes; but the really high cost is in the toll it exacts on youth. Here are just a few of the expenses of this “rite of passage” exacted on the 1.5 million students who go on Spring Break every year.
- They drink (on average) 10 alcoholic drinks per day while on spring break.
- 50% of men claim to have drunk every night until they passed out.
- 80% of parents worry about their children drinking on spring break.
- 76% of male college students plan to sleep with someone they meet on break.
- 3/5ths of women know a friend who had unprotected sex while on spring break.
- 57% of college females said being promiscuous was a way to fit in.
- 60% of students had a run-in with a police officer.
The high cost of Spring Break is much greater than the dollars spent each year, because it leaves a moral deficit within a generation. The real cost is:
- The innocence of a young lady who is taken advantage of because she thought nothing would happen to her.
- The morals of a generation that are sold to the cheapest bidder.
- The integrity lost by a young man who cannot believe he got drunk enough to do something that has scarred his life forever.
- The grieving parents who’s child is in trouble, in jail or maybe even in the morgue.
Maybe I am being a little over-dramatic, but I am in youth ministry because I want to rescue students from darkness. I am not on a crusade to prohibit Spring Break. But as youth leaders and parents, we must get our heads out of the sand, wake up, stand up and do something!
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