When saying “truly breathtaking”, one must understand my intentions behind this phrase. Truly breathtaking is The Young Leaders Summit; a trip to Princeton University to work with some of the most promising young minds of the next generation. Truly breathtaking is going to the District of Columbia to hear from the nation’s most erudite minds in Journalism and Media. These experiences qualify as truly breathtaking.

Also, these experiences are both opportunities that I have been selected for, although that is not the difficult portion of the matter. The difficult portion is to get into these amazing opportunities. This is where the true problem occurs for me and many others around me.

One of the first requirements that The Young Leaders Summit lists in the email sent out to many hopeful high school students is the need to take the Federal Student Aid Estimator that is provided by the organization. If a student is able to qualify for Pell eligibility, the student will be allowed to submit his or her application.

The problem behind Pell eligibility is that these are federal Grants given by the country for free to these students. Many students who wish to apply for this exciting opportunity will not be able to due to this requirement of Pell eligibility.

According to the NCES, the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 31.6% of college undergraduates obtained Pell Grants in the 2022-2023 school year. This, frankly, is an absurd number of students to alienate from this opportunity.

Since these students are undergraduates, it means they recently had the option to apply for The Young Leaders Summit; however, almost 70% would not have been able to use this monumental opportunity.

Moreover, as this graph created from data obtained from the U.S. Department of Education, many Pell  Grants go to the lowest household income families;

however, as described by the Pew Research Lab, middle-class, which has students who are very readily available to do these experiences but do not have other readily available options such as this one, can have incomes that range from slightly over $55,000-$170,000.

Much of the middle-class who, again, would have the students readily available for a summit such as this, cannot enjoy it because the majority do not have access to the Pell Grants.

However, this does not tell the full story of The Young Leaders Summit, the largest omitted fact being that this would be an all-expenses paid trip to Princeton University for these students. While this alone is an enormous piece of information, the fact of the matter is that this is still unfair to any student who cannot obtain a Pell Grant.

As the Federal Student Aid website states, Pell Grants are only given out to “undergraduate students who display exceptional financial need.” This, in as many words, is the final support being taken away from The Young Leaders Summit, which cannot hold itself as a legitimate and viable opportunity for the majority of onlooking high school students.

To pour salt on this gathering’s wound, to see if students qualify for Pell Grants, or in other words, free government money, they must input their parents’ Gross Annual Income into the calculator. In my personal experience and what I have heard from other college hopefuls in my junior class, many of their parents are neither willing nor able to pay for their child’s college cost. These students who may end up acquiring these essential government funds will be prevented now from an inspiring opportunity due to parental income.

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Now that I have discussed examples where the upper, median, and a portion of the lower middle-class cannot partake in a wonderful opportunity, it is time to take a look at one a prejudice squarely against the lower middle-class.

George Mason University of Fairfax, Virginia, which is only a short trip from our nation’s capital, hosts a summer meeting called the Washington Journalism and Media Conference. This conference includes six days at George Mason and in the District of Columbia to talk with, learn about, and study journalism and media in general. The attendees are traditionally selected via nomination or invitation, although some may apply independently.

This sounds like a truly breathtaking experience for one who is interested in Journalism. However, there is one major caveat that hinders some due to family or personal financial trouble, and that is the cost of the trip. The cost of the full experience is $2,600 dollars plus the travel amount to get to George Mason University

The amount needed to attend this is not very egregious compared to what one may think, but keep in mind some facts that have been told repeatedly to recent high school students required to take a class on Personal Finance. According to CBS News earlier this year, nearly 60% of adult Americans do not have a $1,000 cushion in their savings account.

The absurdity of the fact here is not in discussion for the moment; however, what can be discussed is how that could effect a student who wishes to go to this conference. These parents who are not able to create a simple emergency fund clearly do not have sufficient funds to send their child to a special trip during the summer.

However, some may think of the child’s contribution to the payment, which is not a sustainable argument. First off, stated by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 22.5% of high school students have a job. Moreover, teens cannot make enough money to go on a trip like this, with the teens who do work wasting money on recreational items and household necessities. After these payments, the teen will certainly not have enough to pay for this experience.

Some may argue that the benefit of this trip outweighs the cost, which may be true; however, this is only true for the individuals who can pay for the conference in the first place. What needs to be addressed immediately is the actual concern that an inspiring future journalist may not be able to find his or her way via this trip due to its cost.

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Overall, the median middle-class, as well as the lower and upper middle-class portions, get little to no benefit from the amazing opportunities that these organizations have to offer. This is not to say that the experiences are not worth it for those who can attend. The anger of this argument emerges from the inability for so many to attend these wonderful chances to learn and grow in certain areas of life.

So, what should be done about this conundrum? To be quite frank, there is not an easy solution. While the prices may be higher than some can afford and the institution does not allow higher income students to come, these are coming from a place of reason.

As previously mentioned, the Princeton University trip is free of cost, which makes the concept of only allowing those who could not pay make sense; however, this makes much less sense than the other logical conclusion: make those pay who are able to pay. In doing so, the door opens for many more hopeful leaders to enter the ring and have an unrivaled experience.

As for the Washington Journalism and Media Conference, there is no solution that is very logical. The cost makes sense, as the student is being transported to George Mason University for six days. While this is not an end many may hope for, it is simply the way it is.

What about a more generalized solution so that students from far and wide can attend these life-changing experiences? This comes with a simple solution: make more of them. Not every conference must have the top Journalists in the country, but a good semi-local newspaper and professors can work. Give students a chance in all areas of the country, and the next generation’s scholars and leaders may be even stronger than any previous.