Student Loan Debt
The American dream perceived by many is to obtain a college degree to have a successful life. However, many people cannot afford to go to college and are left no choice but to get a student loan. Student loans are intended to help students pay for a higher education, but is it worth the risk of being in debt? The dictatorial definition of debt in the Merriam Webster’s dictionary as a state of being under obligation to pay or repay someone or something in return for something received (“Merriam-Webster”). A borrower is disadvantaged from the beginning of his or her career due to being bombarded with payments. In many cases, people drop out of school or are struggling to find jobs while they owe thousands of dollars in
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Loans with interest increase rapidly and can affect one 's credit score. Credit scores determine if an individual is eligible to buy a home, take out a car loan and obtain credit cards. Paying student loans on time demonstrate to future lenders that you can be trusted to handle money responsibly. For example, my first semester of college, I took out a student loan with Nelnet of 5,700 dollars. Unfortunately, unforeseen hardships came abroad that caused me to lose my job and drop out of school. Within a year and a half, my loan went from 5,500 to 7,700 dollars. If I had paid attention to my grace period and correctly read the loan’s terms of agreements, I probably could have paid what I could afford towards my student loan. Instead, I chose to ignore my student loan and allowed it to accumulate with interest digging myself in a realm of debt.
Next, as a society concerning student loan debt, I propose the cost of tuition should be lower. The price of college tuition varies due to many fees such as commutes, courses, housing, schools, and supplies. Sometimes student loans are not even enough to cover all college cost. For instance, does the student commute or live on campus? Is he or she attending a community college or a university? According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2016–2017 school year was $33,480 at private colleges, $9,650 for state residents at public colleges. (What’s
A problem with student loan debt is that students gain more debt because they are not able to pay off the student loans within the given time which also causes them to put certain life decisions on hold. According to Sophie Quinton debt is a problem for the recent college graduates because “There’s currently no way to get rid of federal student debt other than paying off the loans. while some borrowers are paying off their debts just fine, overall they are adding debt faster than they are shedding it”(Quinton). According to Jamaal Abdul-Alim stated that a “survey - titled Student Loan Debt: Who’s Paying the Price?- revealed a number of troubling statistics about the practical ways that student loans are impacting college graduates in their everyday lives. For instance the survey found that: 49
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.
Each semester the student loan debt increases, and the scary part is that in some cases students will never be able to pay off their debt. Previously, young people would attend college to increase their chances of success in the future; however, now a days it seem like it is more of a financial burden than an investment for the future.{If something is not done to manage the increasing student loan debt, the economy as a whole will also fall into a financial crisis}. Something needs to be done about the student debt in the United States. A proposal should be done to insure that the number of students who fall under student debt have a way to come up from it without the struggle of increase interest rates and a bad credit score. Student loan debt is increasing every year, and some students don’t understand the burden that could come from borrowing money to pay for college. Student loan debt is not just harming students, but also families and the United States economy as a whole, a solution to this problem would be to cancel student loan debt.
The typical all-American dream is a great paying career, a happy family, and a good home to raise them in. This is, however, only possible by going to college and getting a good education at a high-cost university that buries you in debt. Often when discussing student loans the general consensus are that students are in colossal financial struggles if they obtain degrees at good universities. The myth of crippling student loan debt is, however, not typical.
Student loan debt is a debt that students allow to build up and mess up their credit for not paying it back. Student loan debt can be fixed with repayment plans that the student decides will be good for them. Student loan debt came about in 2006 and has been rising higher every year since. Student loan debt is called the gift that keeps on giving. In reality it does not keep giving the student allows other debts to come along making the first debt have more interest and become more expensive than it already was. Student loan debt also comes from the type of school the student decides to choose ("U.S. Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2018”). Whether the school is private or public the debt is tremendous if not
Student Loan is designed to help students pay for University tuition, books, and living expenses. Student Loan Debt money owed on a loan taken out to pay for educational expenses. Rapidly rising college tuition costs have made student debt the only option to pay for college for many students. I think this is very important because it raises awareness for all college students and post college students looking to use their degrees that they have earned. We have a problem in this country of student loan debt. It is keeping students from being able to live out their dreams and holding many students back after college.
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.
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.
Problem With Student Loan Debt Student loan debt is a problem many students have when entering or applying for colleges, student loan debt affects students even after they are out of college and effect them for many years. Many students who experience loan debt also have higher rate of depression rates and also has a higher rate for suicide. As year have gone by student loans has increased by almost a whopping 20% and is expected to grow even more as time goes by. The problem affects so many people most are college students trying to get a education to be able to make money as a job setting and get some experience on how to do the job properly. This affects students a lot in the short term of things including the students being in debt for about 5 years after the graduate, some are affected long term, because they were not able to find the proper job that
Student loan debt in the United States is expanding unrestricted each year. There are 36 million Americans today, holding over $740 billion dollars in student loan debt. (U.S. 2013) The current student loan system is intended to open doors to economic prosperity for those who could not otherwise afford to go to college. Research suggests that the unintended consequence of too much available student credit is real people losing prosperity and languishing in debt for extended periods of their lives. Reducing or eliminating the availability of student loans would have a tremendous impact on improving the lives of Americans. If things continue the way they are now, American’s will soon find college, and its implied ticket to economic
In the U.S. students are encouraged to earn a college degree, but the cost of an education turns many away. “Driven by the allure of a decent salary with a college degree, Americans borrowed to go to school. Outstanding student debt doubled from 2005 to 2010, and by 2012 total student debt in the U.S. economy surpassed $1 trillion” (Mian, Sufi 167). There are plenty of opportunities to obtain funds for college, including one of the most common, student loans. A student loan is defined as “a common way to fund education, specifically college and graduate school, and they provide educational opportunities that you otherwise may not be able to afford” (Barr). Student debt is at an all-time high in America. Over half of all lower income
Student loan debt is widely accepted as normal, and many even call it “good debt”, but I completely disagree. Student loans may sound like an award, but it’s really just an opportunity for you to be swallowed up by debt. Taking a student loan will not only take years to pay back, but you will also have to pay interest on it, which will make you waste an incredible amount of your hard earned money. Also, it will make you base all your decisions on tackling your student loan debt that is constantly growing, effectively wiping out several opportunities you could have taken if you didn’t have all that debt holding you back and controlling all of your decisions.
In the Article “The New American Dream: It’s Not What You Think”, they talk about the American problem with debt of student loans: “To them, financial survival equals success and the American Dream is about staying above water while the kids pile up an average $27,000 of student loan debt” (6). The next big problem in the world is student loans. Student loans are a thing that has been putting students in debt for years. This is caused by not paying back for damaged books, breaking school possessions and more. If you don’t pay back loans after you pass it
For hundreds of years people have been migrating into the United States in search of the American Dream. The idea of this American Dream is so strong that it is even written in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence, written on July 4th 1776, states, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Life is the right to live in peace and free from harm: the ability to grow and change. Liberty is the power to choose and do what one wants: the quality or state of being free. The pursuit of happiness is to follow, catch or capture happiness, usually for a long period of time (Dictionary). Because of these ideals, an individual can live life to its fullest capacity. Most of our dreams refer to owning our own home or business, having a family, a dog and a substantial bank account. The American Dream should be achieved through hard work and sacrifice though many times it is achieved through heavy financial debt. Getting a loan or borrowing money from a creditor such as a bank, to buy that nice car or bigger home is not as difficult as it should be. Many people even borrow more than they know they can afford to pay back risking losing it all when payments go into default. Americans can recapture the American Dream by borrowing less money and
According to The Rising Cost of College by College Choice, since 1981, the total cost of college has gone up by 500% (2). College tuition has increased faster than inflation and even when state subsidies increased, college costs still increased (2-4). One possible short-term solution to the problem is introducing programs that would help improve financial literacy among students and their parents. By educating students and their parents on how to properly budget, college could seem to be more affordable than previously thought (Holland par. 34). Another solution, based on an article, is making students responsible only for the principle in a loan and making public colleges pay the interest. This would cause colleges to lower their costs since this gives colleges incentives to make college cheaper, because colleges don't want to pay interest on their