Rising Prices at OCSA

Asmi Aggarwal

It’s early on a chilly Monday, and the last thing you want to do is get out of bed. A few minutes pass and somehow, you’re able to stand up and lazily convince yourself to get ready for school. Barely awake, you decide you desperately need a heavily caffeinated, cripplingly sweet, piping hot pumpkin spice latte to get you through this cold November day. You eat breakfast, hop in your car, and drive yourself to the nearest Starbucks you can find. You order your drink but when you read the total… $6.50?? Sighing, you dig out the last few coins from your wallet to pay and leave the store. You get in your car, take a sip of your lukewarm latte, and quickly realize your gas tank is almost empty. Already late for school, you pull up to the gas station across the street to get some fuel and… $4.89 per gallon??? At this rate, you’re sure to be broke by the time you finish high school.

Inflation continues to affect many demographics in our country, and although general U.S. rates seem to be decreasing compared to past years, everything still seems so unbelievably expensive. Rising prices for amenities from groceries to healthcare are disproportionately hurting lower-income households, and many middle-aged families with more asset income are taxed at much higher rates as well.

Lately, OCSA has been experiencing a substantial inflation wave of its own. To cover the rising costs of ingredients, raw materials and equipment, food resources at OCSA have been heavily subject to inflationary pressures now more than ever. The prices of most packaged snacks in vending machines alone have surged from $1.50 to $1.75. This approximately 17 percent increase has caught the attention of students such as Ashton Ortega-Fosado (CV ‘27), who explained, “When I was in seventh grade in 2021, snacks only used to be a dollar. Now, they’ve practically doubled the cost.” The recent marketing of ice cream sandwiches and bars for $4.00 in the main blue container has also been an ingenious effort to make money, but it certainly doesn’t help students’ pockets. Even though a pack of nine Blue Bunny vanilla sandwiches can easily be bought on Instacart for as little as $6.00, the convenience and delight of being able to consume sugar during school hours seems to have everyone hooked.

Beyond edible items, OCSA has also been known to have notoriously expensive event tickets. The recent Homecoming dance at Dave and Busters was masterfully planned out by Leadership, but with the average price range of school dance tickets in the U.S. falling from about $10 to $40, OCSA’s $72 fee exceeded the budgets of countless students. Of course, OCSA, unlike most public high schools, has to charge extra in order to secure grandiose venues. However, with this being the only option for students from families with an average source of income, many are left in a pickle when it comes to purchasing a ticket.

The Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Program implemented by the 2021 California state mandate has certainly helped counter this high inflationary environment for many lower income students by reducing the prices of food, lockers, entertainment vouchers and much more. Yet nevertheless, there is still a pressing need for expansions of such arrangements in order to further ease students’ burdens in an already expensive world.