We would argue that the egregious spending is not the result of increased love this year — it’s a crutch. It’s less effort (though not for your wallet) to lavish someone with gifts to make up for where you’ve fallen short than to simply change your behavior. But, as many a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband and wife will learn come Feb. 14, conversation hearts don’t equate to real conversations, and a dozen roses still come with thorns.

Color-coded calendars are filled to the brim with classes, shifts, workouts and hopefully blocking out time to eat in our busy schedules, while finding time with friends is treated like a luxury.

Walking through any freshman door during the first week, you will see the anticipation. But under that, there is an uneven playing field that goes unnoticed. Universities pride themselves on global enrollments and the way they cater to freshmen, but that could not be further from the truth. International freshmen start further back from where the race begins.