Too little, too late
The Messenger Editorial Board
What does it cost to be a college student in the United States?
For the average student, it's about $150,000 for four years of enrollment. Most high schoolers spend multiple years sifting through dozens of colleges to find the place that suits them best. They consider standards including reputation, quality of education, tuition, employment opportunity, extracurricular programs, campus atmosphere, and distance from home.
Today, as more collegiate assaults and fatalities make their way to the news, students have to weigh a heavier factor: their own safety.
Personal security is the most difficult and volatile standard to evaluate a university on, as no amount of background research fully reveals the litany of risks that come with college life. No campus is clear of danger, and no friend is free from suspicion. The only uniformity is in uncertainty.
Ivies aren't any safer than "safety" schools. Threats can lurk in the cleanest of corners, as nearly 95% of campus assaults go unreported. Prestige and familiarity become trapdoors painted like safety nets. For the rest of the world, time extinguishes the newsworthy flames of the incident, but the victim burns for the rest of their life.
At first glance, it isn't difficult to see why these events fade from media and memory. The novelty of college brings a culture of unbridled freedom for students itching to explore the adult world. Popular media and college friends tell high schoolers that out-of-control parties and wild nights are staples of campus life.
It is this very lack of restraint that lets carefree fun become careless contact. In the midst of common revelry, drugged and drunk with powder and power, even the most unexpected individuals can blur boundaries and cross lines until they leave someone else dealing with the consequences.
Realistically, that someone will be too scared, too shaken to file a report within the next morning, month, or year.
Realistically, even if they file it, that report will never see the inside of a courtroom.
Realistically, even if they make it to court, even if they grab the attention of authorities, even if they speak out with passion, even if others speak out for them, even if their case makes local, then national, then international headlines, even if they pique the interest of celebrities, even if their supporters are crowned, even if their antagonists are condemned, even if they spend irretrievable years advocating for justice, for compensation, for a new life, even if they demand acceptance and receive acceptance and demand accountability and receive accountability and demand action and receive action, even if they empower the world and even if the world empowers them,
They are still hurt.
At least 38.8% of victims of campus sexual assault feel their institution has betrayed them. Eighty percent experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and survivors are three times more likely to commit suicide.
A university can do everything right on paper and still fail those who speak up. It is disturbingly uncomplicated to defend these institutions at a legal level, even if the idea sounds morally despicable. Administrators can dole out tier after tier of consequences, but suspensions end, bad reputations wear off, and essays eventually reach their conclusion.
Punishments have expiration dates. The damages they answer for do not.
The Jane and John Does of America—the survivors—know.
They know who picks up when they call the blue light emergency phone. They know how long it takes for help to arrive after they press the panic button. They know who will actually listen to them versus who will dismiss them when they file a report. They know that the institutions meant to protect them somehow end up protecting themselves instead. They know they can open their mouth to scream but will find their voice replaced with a gag and a settlement.
And the high schoolers watching from afar know too. Delivered promises of acceptance and belonging, they are left calculating yet another cost before they submit their application:
Not tuition. Not time.
The cost of whether the place selling them a future can keep them safe long enough to reach it.
