Why I'm Thankful for My Education by Bailey

Why I'm Thankful for My Education by Bailey - November 2015 Scholarship Essay

Education in this economy is the key to a lifetime of opportunities. If you are uneducated, the likeliness of getting a job to support your family is very small. That is why I feel so blessed to have an education as a senior in high school that is free.
Money is something that prevents people from doing a lot of things that they want to do; education being one of those things. Imagine if you had to pay for kindergarten through 12th grade at the cost of college tuition today. Four years of college tuition is enough to make high school graduates shy away from furthering their education, but if it was 13 years of paying for school then only the rich would be able to afford it and our society would not be the same as it is today. This is what our founding fathers wanted to prevent when they made public schools have funding. They wanted to prevent the rich from holding all of the power as the only educated citizens in the new country. After all, America is the land of opportunity.
Having free public schools is what I’m extremely thankful for because, coming from a family of five, money has to stretch to cover the necessities. With things like bills and food to pay for to survive, a lot of families like mine would have to forget about the idea of getting an education if they had to pay for it since it would just be an added expense. A free, public school eliminates the financial aspect of education in the first 13 years before college. Without this opportunity, I wouldn’t have gotten to further my knowledge and have the opportunity to go to college after I graduate in June 2016.
Not only is having free public schools amazing, but having access to amazing teachers that are truly dedicated to teaching me is something I will be forever thankful for. I am lucky to have teachers that are there not just for the paycheck, but for my education. My senior year started two weeks late as a result of the Pasco teachers going on strike because our school board refused to give us new material for the new state tests we were being administered. They did that for us, the students. You could look at it as I got two more weeks of summer, but I choose to look at it as my teachers are the best because they care about the education I’m getting.
In the end, I couldn’t be more thankful for what I have. Every day I get to learn something new for the cost of nothing by teachers that actually want to teach me and better me in life. As the number one student of over 600 students at Chiawana High School, I can’t appreciate enough the opportunity I have been given through the free education I received.