Student Loan Debt

Before we can go any further, we need to first define what exactly a student loan is, and what student loans can entail. A student loan is defined as “A type of loan designed to help students pay for post-secondary education and the associated fees”. Student loans are marvelous and a supportive tool for college students, but people don't realize that everything they borrow needs to be paid back with interest. Five years ago in 2012 “71%” of students graduating four-year colleges had student loans and the average indebtedness of a college graduate was “$29,400”. If you compare that to 1993 the average indebtedness of a college graduate was “$9,450” (Average Student Loan Debt, 1993-2012). In only 19 years there was a $19,950 dollar difference in the averages. Those numbers do not include the interest that the student will have to pay back over time. All of those factors are just a small part of what makes up student debt but it is good to have a general

The main problems with student debt are the high monthly payments, high interest, short grace period, and repayment programs that does not apply to everyone. Majority of students can’t pay back loans they have borrowed because they aren’t given enough time to pay them off. Students have at least six months to pay off their debt before they get an increase in interest. Over 75% percent of students have to get loans to pay for their first year of college and more (Quadlin). Debt is something we all have to deal with even parents suffer from them as well.

Student loan debt affects college students all over the United States. Today students are having to take out loans in order to pay for all of their college expenses. It can be a pain to deal with the hassle of paying back the loans. The problems with student loans include causing students to go into debt that they are not able to pay them off in the given time which makes them put major life decisions on hold, and the debt stay with the student even through bankruptcy. A solution that would solve these problems is the idea of debt forgiveness which is the idea that the government will get rid of all the loan debt for college graduates.

A retrospective look might provide a clue as to how so many Americans landed in the whole “student loan” dilemma in the first place. As discussed in the America article “The Student Debt Crisis” as part of the plan to create a ‘Great Society’ President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law The Higher Education Act of 1965. The act provided more funding to public colleges and universities, giving them more resources so that students would be able to afford college. Hence, the birth of the student loan (2015).

In order to first understand why there is such a problem with student loans, understanding what they are

The problem with today’s current level of student loans is that it causes so many people that took out loans to go into debt later on in their life. Now when the former students go into debt, it creates a domino effect. The students going into debt means that the government will be able to get their money paid back to them which causes the country to be buried in an even deeper hole of debt. The nation is currently over 20 trillion dollars in debt and student loan debt is more than 1.5 trillion dollars as well according to the United States Debt Clock as of November 2017. The issue of student loan debt needs to be addressed sooner rather than later to help the country gradually come out of debt. A start to help reduce the amount of debt in

Student loan debt has become a big financial problem for the United States of America. The Student loan debt nationwide is now in the range of one trillion dollars. President Obama has now addressed this problem with the federal student loan forgiveness program which will help graduate students with paying for their loan, but that does not seem like that will be enough to help with this problem. Has anyone asked the question, “How did we allow this to happen and what can we do to help the next generation of graduates?” Incoming college students along with their parents need to be educated regarding loans, grants, scholarships. They need to understand the terms and consequence to these

As Young teenagers become adults and start College, one issue that doesn’t seem as a big deal at the moment for many students are student loans. Young college students who don’t have the money, don’t have enough scholarship money, or family who doesn’t have the money to pay, will apply for student loans each year. They amount the student receives can vary depending on the college and what the student has achieved academically. Though interest rates are low with subsidized being 4.29% and unsubsidized being 5.84% ("Federal Student Aid" Interest rates and Fees), student loans still have a huge effect on college students once they graduate. One college graduate’s story helps explain the struggles for most students:

Fact: Not all debts can be discharged through bankruptcy, and typically, student loan debt falls into that category. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but isn’t as easy as discharging other types of debt, and you may not be eligible. As such, it’s important to not just assume that bankruptcy can be an automatic solution for any student loan debt troubles.

What you don’t know about student loans can hurt you.” As Americans pursue more education, they also accumulate more student debt. Student loans have become a big problem for college students across many American campuses’ because of increasing tuition cost, decreasing the amount of grants and scholarships, and the high interest rates of student loans.

As I’m sure you’re aware, student loan debt is one of the few areas where filing bankruptcy does not discharge the balance still owed. If one doesn’t get a job straight out of college, this debt becomes a plight on the graduate—something they wish they had never embarked on. But worst of all, this arbitrary rule makes no sense. Why can you discharge credit card debt and mortgage debt, but not student loan debt? That’s why I’m proposing that legislation be put in to place, like it was before 1976, to make student loan debt dischargeable by bankruptcy. Now, you have to keep in mind that doesn’t mean everyone who ever got a student loan will turn right back around and file for bankruptcy. This is not an easy process, simply a means to an end, for those people who feel helpless beyond

It was first promulgated in 2010 that outstanding student loan in the United States exceeded that of outstanding credit card debt for the first time ever (Kristof, 2012). As of today, there is over $1.2 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, $1 trillion of which is in the form of federal student loans (Denhart, 2013). The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 was designed to ease some of that burden and mitigate some of the real damage incurred by a lifetime of insurmountable debt.

The student loan system came about in the Higher Education Act or HEA of 1965 (Wenisch, 2). This act allowed “federal loan guarantees to extend to private lenders so as to encourage them to lend funds for the specific purpose of financing college education” (Wenisch, 2). The HEA was inputted so that more people, from lower income families, could still get a higher

Two main parties profit from student indebtedness: finance lenders and the federal government. “Finance lenders” (p.59) take out loans at a low interest rate and loan the money out to students at a higher interest rate, profiting from the difference in interest. McClanahan emphasizes the manipulative nature of these oh-so-generous lenders by explaining how their targeted and selfish advertising makes individuals in need of money believe that they offer a better deal that the government or banks; they aim to snare anyone, regardless of their need or ability to pay back the loan.

The more student loan services there are, more money becomes available and the easier it makes for colleges to raise their tuitions.