On an individual level, we’ve been told that our financial struggles could be solved by working more hours or giving up overpriced coffee. But when an entire generation is working more, borrowing more and sacrificing more just to afford the basic necessities of life, we have to recognize that something much larger is at play. 

These rising costs aren’t coming out of thin air. The Trump administration and Republicans like Mike Rogers and Tom Barrett have made policy choices that increase and affect what students and working families pay every day. Tariffs make groceries and other essentials more expensive. Changes to federal student loan policy leave students with fewer options to finance their education. And rolling back investments in cleaner, more affordable energy makes it harder to bring down the energy costs families are already struggling to pay. 

When leaders choose policies that make those pressures worse, students feel the consequences. We need choices that put students, working people and communities first—not billionaires, corporations or political interests. 

And we cannot keep treating these pressures as separate problems. Housing affordability is student affordability. Energy affordability is student affordability. The price of gas and groceries is student affordability. The cost of higher education is student affordability. 

But affordability is not only about what we can afford today. It is also about what kind of future we want to invest in tomorrow. 

Students are inheriting a world shaped by climate change, attacks on higher education, technological uncertainty, and political decisions that will affect our lives for decades. These challenges are not separate from affordability. They shape the opportunities available to us, the careers we can pursue, and the futures we can imagine for ourselves. 

When all of these rising costs compound at once, students are forced to choose between surviving today and preparing for tomorrow.

For me, this is also about the promise of the American Dream. My father was born in a small village in Nigeria and came to this country believing that if you work hard, pursue an education and sacrifice today, you can build something better tomorrow. 

But that promise only means something if our leaders are willing to protect it. 

Millions of students make that same bet every year. We sit in classrooms, put in the hours and sometimes take on enormous loans because we believe an education will create better opportunities later in life. 

If students do everything we are told to do and still cannot afford housing, transportation, basic necessities or even the education that is supposed to help us get ahead, then the American Dream starts to feel less like a promise and more like an American lie. 

Protecting students means making sure we are not priced out of higher education. It means addressing student debt and recognizing that rent, grocery bills, utility costs and transportation expenses are not separated from the our education. They determine whether we can stay in school and take advantage of the opportunities we came here to pursue. 

Students are not statistics. We are people working jobs, taking classes, paying bills, and trying to build lives for ourselves. 

We should be building an economy where education is an investment rather than a financial burden and where students do not have to choose between making it through today and building a better tomorrow. If we are living in a world where our future is being taken from us, then it is up to us to take it back.

Braxton Maduka is a student majoring in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy and Social Relations & Policy at James Madison College. He is the Vice President of the MSU College Democrats.

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