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Student Loan Debt

Decent Essays

The Insufficient Amount of Financial
Literacy Available in Regard to Student Loan Debt
This personal finance paper will concentrate on the insufficient amount of guidance that is available concerning student loans. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how prospective and current college students are ill prepared in their education and understanding of student loans. Three major issues that will be outlined in this paper include the large majority of college students are no longer able to pay for college out of pocket due to the rising costs, the effect that national debt has on students degrees, and finally the lack of early financial education to make crucial decisions. Strategic recommendations these issues include for students to …show more content…

To begin, the first issue explores how the present price tag of college has increasingly become more expensive and continues to rise every year. Many students are attending colleges that they are unable to afford out of pocket. The result of this is students turning to alternative means to pay for college, which is primarily accepting large amounts of loans from organizations such as FASA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Therefore, many students accumulate large amounts of debt throughout their time in school due to lack of proper preparation and research of the type of loans they are receiving. Despite the high level of educational debt that looms over our nation today, a large majority of students still choose pursue their educational goals in obtaining a degree.
As of mid-July 2016, the outstanding student loan debt was almost $1.4 trillion and is estimated to reach $2.5 trillion by (Muralidhar, Pamecha, 2017). To put in perspective how much the cost of attending college has increased, in 1980, at the average four year university, a student who worked full time over the summer at a minimum wage job could cover tuition the following year and have the 2012 equivalent of $1,923 left over. In contrast, in 2012, a student that works full time over the summer at a minimum wage job covers 42% of tuition at an average four year university which leaves them $4,764 short for the year

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