If you’ve kept an ear and eye out over theses last few years then you’ve most likely heard the word “recession” going around. No one has really gave the word any significance until now that we have begun to really see its effects.

Hershey’s has raised its selling price by almost 5% to meet production costs. We see more arrows pointing towards south where stocks are concerned, more houses being foreclosed, and the cost of gas never seems to go down. A bus ride in London costs more than double it did two years ago, and a gelato in Venice costs over 50 cents more.

But we don’t need a rise in the cost of chocolate or ever increasing gas prices to let us know that we must take action to ensure our success in the next years. As students, we must start thinking about how we’re going to save money to buy a house and car and how we can ensure that we have enough or any money for after we retire—if we don’t die before we’re 80. We have to start taking our education seriously so that we can take our future seriously. Having a high school diploma isn’t enough to pay for a home, car, and family anymore. We must each have a plan to use our education wisely so that we may find jobs that will pay us enough to buy the car and that house we want, recession or no.

We don’t have to look for examples of the significance of a recession anymore—it’s already here.