A full-time student at Bucks
pays a pretty penny for classes,
and it is nothing compared
to a four-year school’s
tuition.
Even with a decent paying
job, many students can barely
afford to pay for their classes,
books and lab fees.
And once tuition is paid for,
where does any extra cash
they have go to?
When it comes down to it
and the bills are totaled, it’s
the last thing students could
imagine. It’s not food, friends
or significant others, it’s gas.
“Carpooling with my brother
and neighbor helps,” said
Morrisville local Trent Russo.
“But if prices keep going up
we’ll have to choose between
the car and school.”
According to
www.unece.org, the U.S. has
765 cars per 1,000 people, the
highest in the world, making
it necessary to drive in order
to make a living.
Bucks students should consider
themselves lucky they
don’t live in Kodiak, Alaska,
where gas prices are reported
to be a choking $4.33.
“I work 30 hours a week for
$8 an hour,” said Shelly Bast
of Yardley, chemistry major.
“Half my paycheck goes into
the gas I use to get to campus
for 20 hours of classes.”
According to a report by the
Energy Information
Administration as of May
2007, at a retail price of $3.03
per gallon, 13 percent of what
we pay for gas goes toward
taxes, 10 percent to distribution
and marketing, and 8
percent to refining and 69
percent to crude oil.
“When I go out I have to
think what I can get all at one
time,” said Sarah Rambo,
from Bensalem. “I try not to
drive too much.”
So, for those of us who are
horrible at math, what does
this mean?
Simple: supply and demand
is the concept that is driving
gas prices up.
The world’s crude oil prices
are increasing because the
demand is outweighing the
production.
“I actually laughed when
my grandparents tell me of
when everything was cheaper,”
said Simon Peterson,
chemistry major of Fairless
Hills. “But it’s not funny
when I’m at the pumps.”
In the U.S. job market,
between 32 and 40 hours is
considered full-time.
With a current minimum
wage of $7.15 in PA, increasing
to $7.25 in 2009, the average
student can make less
than $224 a week.
With Bucks tuition at $95
per credit and 12 credits
needed to be considered a
full-time student, full-time
tuition starts at roughly
$1,200 a semester, not including
books.
“I hope [the price of gas]
goes down,” said Sarah
Douglass, business administration
major from
Buckingham, adding that it
probably won’t because
“summer is around the corner.”
In the end, even though
most college students enjoy
independence from their parents,
they can’t afford to keep
up with America’s continuous
demand for driving.
“I work for a company that
owns cars,” said Kevin
McGinty, Trevose native
majoring in finance, “and I
have to put 75 bucks [of gas]
into my car a week!”
As we complain, consider
the reported prices in other
countries for a single gallon
of gas. Denmark, $7.44, the
United Kingdom, $7.72 and a
staggering $10.03 in Turkey,
according to a report released
in 2007 from the Federal
Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and
Development in Germany.
The search for the cheapest
gas in town has become such
an issue that some well
known, and enterprising,
companies are getting in on
the action.
Google, one of the mostused
search engines on the
internet, provides a gas price
search program in conjunction
with their road maps
site.
For those of you that are not
tech savvy, that means that
you can type in your home
address and the program will
search all local gas stations
for the lowest possible price,
according to the parent site
Gasbuddy.com that runs the
Google program.
As of April 10, the site
reported the cheapest gas
around Bucks $3.12 at gas stations
in Penndel, with the
most expensive of $3.39 in
Lancaster.
But until the time comes
when gas prices finally begin
to drop, or the much talked
about but rarely seen alternative
fuel cars hit the mass
market, Bucks students will
have to continue finding
ways to make do with the
current drain on our bank
accounts.
Sometimes cost-cutting can
be for the best, but many
times it’s for the worse.