Anyone who says that college students have it easy is just bat-crazy.

True, we are in the prime of our lives with fast metabolisms, newly explored freedoms and endless possibilities. But when you add in the mix of studying for finals and balancing some semblance of a social life, things start to get real

I just got stress hives reading that last sentence, and I haven’t even brought in the grandmother of all worries: money.

Life doesn’t come cheap, and unless you have a rich uncle who pays for your every purchase, it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve all wondered at least once when our next paycheck will come in.

Although it’s impossible that all of our financial stress will just magically disappear, there’s a chance that things may get a tad bit easier.

In his State of the State address on Feb. 6, Gov. Pat Quinn introduced the idea of raising the minimum wage in Illinois from $8.25 to an even $10 in the next four years. He’s looking out specifically for residents in poverty in Illinois but also called the proposal with student employees in mind. And President Obama also jumped on the raise train, calling last Tuesday in his State of the Union address for the federal minimum wage to be bumped up to $9.

This sounds wonderful. And almost too good to be true.

I think the biggest concern with everyone isn’t what they’re going to do with their money when they get their sweet new advance of $1.75, but where the money is going to come from.

It’s no secret that the state of Illinois is in tremendous debt — according to the real-time U.S. debt clock, we’re in a hole of about $145 billion, which equals out to $11,313 per person. We don’t exactly have an endless supply of cash lying around to support a raise.

It’s also tricky because of the school of thought that suggests that raising the price would lead to a loss in jobs. If the wage goes up, could a company really afford to hire more people? 

Raising the wage is risky. Many think it could be better if left alone, with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of attitude. But it’s also one of those things that could work in our favor.

First of all, this proposal goes beyond us. As I said before, Quinn and Obama are keeping a majority of Americans in mind when it comes to raising the minimum wage. According to President Obama, a full-time worker earns $14,500 a year with the current wage. To a prospective grad student like myself, that looks like a pretty attractive stipend; to a mother with three kids, however, that’s a nightmare.

But some may look at us and argue that our circumstances are different. Though there isn’t a typical college student, the majority of us may not be the head of a household. We’ve survived with this wage for so long; do we really need the near $2 jump in pay?

The answer is yes. We deserve it. We’ve earned it.

As students, we work a variety of jobs, whether it’s our dream internship that just can’t pay us enough, or if it’s the 9-1 shift that we hate but pays our electricity bill.

We work for different reasons, from being able to afford a new pair of boots once in a while to being able to afford a degree. But whatever the reasoning may be, it is generally one of the worst feelings in the world to worry about whether you can afford something or make a payment by the end of the month.

Finances are a big part of what stresses out students, and I argue that the state has a responsibility to make our lives a little bit easier.

There’s no denying that a pay raise would have to take some serious legislative and economic thinking. But it’s nothing that the state can’t do. Quinn, Obama and their teams need to realize that this can only be considered a good deed if we’re not paying for our pay raise somewhere down the road in the form of a ridiculous tax. They can’t cheat to raise the money, and I suggest starting to look at reasonable places to get the money and ways to keep the number of hires steady, like cutting back on some benefits, paid training hours, or bonuses for higher-up workers.

$1.75 isn’t much. The raise isn’t coming for another four years, and it’s not going to instantly get us a new car, or complete piece of mind. But it may, just may, give us a little bit of the sense that we’re in the prime of our lives again.

Tolu is a senior in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].