By Brielle Ballantine
Editor-in-chief

Recently, it has been announced that public high schools in eight states will introduce a new system next year allowing students the opportunity to graduate after their sophomore year. Students will have to pass a number of tests in order to get their diploma two years earlier, or they can choose to stay and finish their last two years.

In other countries, it is believed that the appropriate age for students to graduate is 16; but even at age 18, the human brain isn’t fully developed. “According to recent findings, the human brain does not reach full maturity until at least the mid-20s.” Jay Giedd, Chief of the Unit on Brain Imaging in the Child Psychiatry Branch at National Institute of Mental Health wrote, in his book “Adolescent Brain Development: Vulnerabilities and Opportunities.” “The brain isn’t fully mature at 16, when we are allowed to drive, or at 18, when we are allowed to vote, or at 21, when we are allowed to drink, but closer to 25, when we are allowed to rent a car.” Most seniors are unsure of what they want to pursue after they leave high school, giving students two years younger the opportunity to make those decisions is ridiculous.

Also, the life lessons that are taught in high school will be cut short, making students less prepared for the “real world.” In high school, most teens learn lessons that they can use for the rest of their life, making them mature and grow into their own person. When you cut these lesson short, they are less mature and less prepared for what is to come.

“When I was in tenth grade I wasn’t anywhere near as prepared for life as I am now,” senior Tori Del Titio said. “All I was worried about what having fun, not getting serious and worrying about my future.”
The maturity levels between a sophomore and a senior are completely different. The average senior is preparing for college, dealing with scholarships, grants and finical aid, or working non-stop to make a career; sophomores, on the other hand, are having fun and not worrying about a job, which is how it should be.
If students were to graduate earlier, they would be losing a part of their childhood. Fifteen and 16-year-olds deserve to have no worries and to live life. Iif we give them the opportunity to graduate early, we are pushing kids to want to grow up faster. That’s not fair to them.

At the young age of 16, the only job that students would be able to get would be a minimum wage job. Working at Sesame Place and going to Bucks County Community college while only 16 years old is not easy. The work and stress load these students would be carrying would be 10 times worse than if they were to stay in high school.
“Being a senior, I stress out enough with all the work I’m responsible for,” Senior Casey Binduga said, “let alone if I were to have a job and be in college level courses.”

Teenagers deserve to be teenagers; no one deserves to have life forced upon them, especially when they are mentally not ready. Students should take the four years they are in high school to find themselves and realize who they are, and who they want to be, before they try to grow up without a clue about the real world.