“It will only cost $500, all inclusive. Flight, room, food …”

There was a brief pause.

“Oh, plus drinks, yea. So like $1000.”

The source of the conversation was an innocent looking petite in a baggy Cornell sweatshirt, clutching a calculus textbook unable to fit in her jam-packed Jansport backpack.

I immediately knew she was planning her spring break. Spring break: the consummate week of sun, sand and “romance.” The week students from across the country “dance” intimately with strangers in unrestricted, inebriated revelry on national television. The one-week revolt against the rigor of the American education system — book learning swept rudely from the altar, replaced by carnal knowledge.

One popular misconception about spring break is that it is a modern phenomenon of the MTV generation. If your mom came with you (God forbid), you know she wouldn’t approve.

In reality, spring break was first immortalized even earlier than your parents’ generation, in the 1960 “coming of age” film Where the Boys Are. In the movie, three college girls escape the freezing north during spring break and head to Ft. Lauderdale, FL, because that’s where the boys are. In turn, college guys escape the freezing north and head there too, because that’s where the girls are. The first spring breakers listened to “dialectic jazz” and danced the limbo, but other than that’s it’s the same old story. Like then, the students of America gather to celebrate the Rite of Spring. And go wild. And spend money.

Although in the past, spring break has tended to be a selfish, hedonistic week of sin, this year, because of the economic crisis, spring break is bigger than you. As our economy grinds to a halt, our profligate budget spending is necessary to help prop up aggregate demand. The amount of money Jansport girl is going to spend next week is on par with the average Obama tax break. And while your parents may hold onto their tax return — whether because they expect larger taxes in the future or are weary of investing in this economy — college students have no such restraint or foresight.

For the hospitality industry, this is “Christmas in March.”

The economic consequences of spring break were brought up in a recent Travel Channel special, World’s Best Spring Breaks. In the show, one local Texan purveyor, who teaches surfing for a living, says March is her busiest month of the year. Another, who rents jet skis, rambles that he doesn’t celebrate Christmas until April, because that’s when the money rolls in.

So literally ride the wave of economic recovery and think (or not think) about the awesome effect we are having on the service industries that define America: We are making it possible for people other than our well-paid professors to celebrate Christmas. Scantily clad college girls boost the ratings, and hence the ad revenue, of the Travel Channel and MTV. Soon, another edition of Girl’s Gone Wild: Spring Break will stimulate the film industry. And, of course, alcohol companies love spring break almost as much as they love recessions.

Spring break is also an opportunity to encourage the entrepreneurship that has made America great. Consider Spring Break Solutions, LLC, a company founded by enterprising business students, presumably without any job offers or better ideas. If you work for SBS this spring break, the company will pay for your travel and lodging while you work for commission. If you are a girl, all you have to do is dress scantily and comb the beaches as saleswomen selling tickets for booze cruises. (If you’re a guy, it’s a lot harder to be a spring break entrepreneur.)

As any bartender will tell you, spring break would be even better for the American economy if not for the drinking age. Ever since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, many college students have decided to go abroad for the week, where the drinking age is lower or non-existent, rather than remain in the U.S. Think of all the money our economy is losing!

I’m surprised this hasn’t been brought up in Congress, which recently debated the merits of a “Buy American” clause in the stimulus package. In basically all recessions, policymakers seek to pass protectionist policies, like tariffs and quotas and “Buy American” clauses. The problem is that other countries do just the same, and everybody is worse off. You would think that our policy makers would have learned better by now.

Dear nation’s intellectually inept policy makers, why not lower the drinking age to 18 during the month of March? This would keep college kids from spending their money abroad and help in the recovery of the U.S. economy. And, since it’s not overtly protectionist, other countries wouldn’t know how to retaliate.

Just like during recessions, when policy makers always seem to make the same mistakes — like protectionist policies — every time, spring break also has lessons that we never seem to learn. For instance, in the film Where the Boys Are, the main characters realize the serious consequences of their physical actions only after it was too late.

You too can have this coming of age experience for as low as $500. Plus drinks, of course. And you’ll (kind of) be stimulating the economy at the same time. At the very least, while students in China and India get burnt out, you will come back more relaxed and ready to invent the next internet.

For the sake of our country, let’s hope so. But before I turn all serious, I better wrap up — I leave tonight for the sun and sand of Florida, and I still have to pack.