In 1976, the average cost to attend a four year public university was $2,175; today, the average cost to attend a four year public university is $25,000 (Snyder). This means it is 1150% more expensive to go to college in The United States today than it was 30 years ago. This obviously would create a problem on how we as people are going to pay for our higher education. Today college has become almost a necessity to have a satisfactory life, and with these rising prices some individuals believe student loans are the only option. There are many reasons as to why the prices have risen, but the one undeniable fact is that this has created a problem within our country. Which, is known as the student debt crisis, and it has been on the rise the past couple years. This problem is affecting people all around the United States, and is causing multitude of problems for them all because they wanted to pursue higher education. Wanting to better your opportunities by bettering yourself is not something that needs to be punished, and sadly that is what is happening. This problem is something that needs to be fixed for the sake of Americans and our economy, but will also take time and a multitude of steps to correct. There are currently 40 million Americans that have student loans they are still paying off. Along with this 70% of all students graduating with a bachelor 's degree will graduate with debt. If this is not convincing enough look at the class of 2015, they have graduated with
I also found some web sources that have a divergent view. For example, “Debt Burden: Repaying Student Debt”, a report written by American Council on Education, the only higher education organization that represents presidents and chancellors of all types of U.S. accredited, degree-granting institutions. This report describes the borrowing and repayment experiences of 1992/93 and 1999/2000 bachelor’s degree recipients one year after graduation. The author believed that student loan debt did not have discernible impact on graduate one year later. To support his/her argument, the author collects data from U.S. Department of Education and National Center for Education Statistics. Although this source is reliable and
The United States needs to look to other nations that have figured out the necessity of higher education to be at an affordable cost if not free. In 2015, college graduates are facing on average just north of $35,000 in student debt (Berman). In part, the government has reduced the federal funding that each college receives each year. Therefore, colleges have constantly raised the
Along with the average tuition increasing, so has the average income of Americans. In order to afford college tuition, student loans, financial aid, and scholarships come in handy for the time being. Unfortunately, American’s who have finished college still have a load of debt to pay off for many years after graduating. Americans are spending money they don 't have to finance educations they are not sure are worth it. In some cases, students who find jobs right out of high school are left without college debt, but also without a degree. On the other hand, many people who attend college have large college debts yet have a decent
Children are taught young about the American dream and how exactly to obtain it. You go to school, work hard, receive an education, graduate, procure a job, get married, purchase a house and a car, have children, and then you tell the next generation to repeat. And if a young adult should deviate from the norm and decides not to go to college, then the only employment they could ever find is at some restaurant that offers minimum wages. However, as exaggerated as that hypothetical situation is, even myths can hold a form of truth because the truth of the matter is that to ever have a chance at prospering in America. But before an individual can become a student, they first have to be able to afford the cost; and for the average American, they
In 1965, the President of the United States Lyndon Johnson signed the Higher Education Act of 1965. This allowed for many things needed in the higher education system, one of them being low interest loans to students who need financial assistance to get through college. This is where the debt problem begins, but does not get out of control until the most recent past decade. Some of the drastic increase of debt can be contributed to more people going to college, but can also be contributed to state schools receiving less money from their respective states and needing to raise tuition and all other fees to cover the difference. Schools do have other justifiable reasons to raise rates as well, such as utilities, upgrades to the campus upon requests of the student population, employee wages, no one is willing to work
In fact, in the past, even if you were a college graduate, you were considered to be in the minority of the society; however, today, a college degree is fundamentally a requirement for any majority of careers. As the need for a college degree increased, the less affordable it became, therefore, student loans became a must. Although student loans do help students with a higher education, they can also get those individuals into tons of debt. Even though we can all benefit from a college education, the future looks pretty barren for those with student loans. The future of college tuition, and in another word, student loan; seems to be going only up with no release in sight. In order to get a better understanding of why, this might be a good time to look back at when the first federal student loan and grant programs were established and how it has fueled the rising tuition costs.
The United States student loan debt crisis is worsening by the minute. According to analysts about two students who had taken out a sum of student loan debt default every minute. This default rate is setting the United States up for a major financial crisis. What is driving the nation deeper into the red is the greed of the loan servicers. Although not illegal, loan servicers direct students who appear as a troubled applicant to sketchy and costly loan repayment plans. A branch of what is now known as Sallie Mae is responsible for a majority of the problem, because their sister company Navient “services roughly $300 billion in loans taken out by 12 million borrowers.” (1)
College, originally deemed as the pointer to guaranteed employment, financial stability, and an indicator of success, has been declared in jeopardy. Topping the credit card debt and many household debts, the student loan debt has been pronounced the next potential financial disaster in the U.S. With 2014’s numbers currently exceeding $1.2 trillion, the debt figures have reached about twice of 2007’s remaining debt (Akers, 2014). Gone are the days when a parent could send a child to the state university to study their interests and finish off with a job offer, ensuring a respectable future. The average balance for a 2014 college graduate is $32,500, which will be dragging out of not only themselves but also their families (Rajan, 2014).
Going to college has been taught to be the next step in education after graduating high
“Those who earned a bachelors degree in 2011 graduated with an average of $26,000 in debt” (Economist). This is an alarming statistic for me, considering that “the debt per student has doubled in the past 15 years,” so that figure doesn’t seem to be going down any time soon (Economist). I believe that this student loan debt crisis is something that should be resolved with the utmost time-efficacy in Washington. Increasing Pell grants is a great start, but more needs to be done to truly fix the crisis.
When it becomes time for someone to pay off their student loans, it can be a long, complex, and strenuous process. Attorney Heather Jarvis, a specialist in the field of managing student loan debt, graduated Duke University School of Law with a total of $125,000 in loans. “Four-year college graduates continue to experience far less unemployment and earn higher salaries than those with only a high school education… But higher education is expensive and scholarships and grant aid has failed to keep with the rising tuitions.” Says Heather Jarvis. This shows that yes attending college is beneficial to people and their futures, but with tuition continuously rising year after year, colleges have failed to keep increasing the scholarships and grants they give out, which in turn causes many students to end up taking out loans, which if they don’t manage right can have endless effects on their future. “In the United States today, there are approximately thirty-seven million student loan borrowers who together owe more than one trillion dollars. Seven in ten college seniors who graduated in 2012 had student loan debt. Those who had student loan debt owed an average of $29,400.” This is why it is so important to constantly monitor one’s loans, because they can pile up very quickly and suffocate you with debt when you finally get around to paying them.
Student debt is one of the top causes of crippling debt. If you want to get a college education in today's world, you will need to either be very wealthy or suffer the consequences of student loans. College costs had risen five hundred percent since 1985, imagine how much more that has risen until 2016. A tuition at a private college was projected to cost $130,000 on average for over four years. As state cutbacks in the wake of the financial crisis, caused the cost the price of public higher education to raise by 15 percent in a two year
As decades pass by, obtaining a college degree seems more necessary to get a decent job after graduating. Therefore, high school students feel the pressure to get into a good university and to get the highest degree possible, even when they have no plan on how to pay for it. Financial aid has not kept up with growing tuition prices, and taking out student loans seems almost impossible to avoid. According to research, “About 40 million Americans hold student loans and about 70% of bachelor’s degree recipients graduate with debt.” (Market Watch) The U.S currently has a total of 1.3 trillion dollars of outstanding debt. There is a ton of controversy on how to solve this issue, but there are progressive solutions schools and college kids need
Education is one of the main social institutions in today’s society. That is why it is so difficult for me to understand why it is becoming so unaffordable in the past few years. When did wanting to further education become such a burden for graduated students? There are 41 million Americans that have over $1.2 trillion dollars in student loan debt. According to the Project on Student Loan Debt, the average graduate with a bachelor’s degree pays about $350 a month on student loans for around 19 years. I cannot stress enough in how paying for college or paying off loans has become such a challenge for students who are not provided with financial aid or enough financial aid to pay for all their necessary classes. There is also the challenge in
When reason becomes the foundation of what is considered a good choice, emotion is portrayed as its enemy. An example taken into consideration at the moment is the fact that student debt is at an all time high. There are about 37 million people who are actually struggling to pay off their student debt. This student debt is estimated to be an appalling $1 trillion. It is certain that this influences both the government, but the question is what the influence is? Is it emotion; is it reason, or both? Would a combination of both ideals be beneficial to both sides? In regards to change that satisfies both the government, and the students; emotion combined with reason can help make the decision process less concrete, and more open because individual university students choices should play a role in the way the government also makes their choices, as something like student debt after graduation can significantly influence the direction of that student’s life.