My school was notorious for costs. Want to play in the marching band? That's $2500. School lunch? It'll cost ya $10 or $15 per day depending on what you get. Taking AP classes? $50 each. Don't have the only approved calculator? That's $200.

Most of these expenses are because the state stopped giving ANY money to the school. The state only considered how much they were giving to each district. My school was getting $14M from the state when I moved here. But because of the size of it, the per-pupil amount was actually the lowest in the county, but the state ignored that fact. They ended up cutting all funding and now the school is struggling to hold on and survives only because of local taxes and school fees. If we want change, we need to take it up with the government rather than the school. Affordable education isn't possible if educational institutions get nothing from the state.