Student Loan Debt : The American Dream Perceived By Many

While this is often true, it can create problems when a student does not have the money to pay for a quality education. The cost of college has risen an estimated 250-500% over the last 30 years while consumer price index has only increased by 115 percent during the same time frame (White, 2015; Eskow, 2014). The amount of student loan debt is increasing, along with the cost of college. The income of many young people today cannot keep up with the rising costs of college education and housing. Part of the problem with student loan debt begins when students choose to attend a college that exceeds their financial resources and rely on federal student loans as well as private student loans to make up the difference. Eskow found that even public colleges and universities are becoming difficult to pay for without taking out student loans often averaging $30,000 for tuition, room, and board (2014). Since many people do not have enough money to cover college education expenses, they rely on student loans, both federal and private, to fill the gap. Financial advisor Ramsey stated that often the loans students take out pay “for an off-campus standard of living, and no debt was needed to get the degree” (2013). “The Project on Student Debt reported in 2013 over ⅔ graduating seniors were leaving school with student loans” averaging approximately $28,400 (White, 2015). Taking on almost $30,000 in debt before even starting a career can have a significant impact. It can force people to get a job just to pay off the student loans, not based on what they got an education for prepared for or what they studied. This also can cause a setback in future plans, having to delay many adult milestones due to lack of

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Therefore, banks would not deem students worthy of very large loans, as there would be no basis for the bank to assess the risk of default. So the Government set up rules for itself. It created a system that students could get tremendous sums of money in loans. The Government then created laws that the student could never clear the loans through bankruptcy. This is important; students who cannot clear the loan will remain in debt forever until it is paid back. The National Center for Public Policy did a report that “suggest that there are some significant, negative, and lasting consequences of the current system of financing higher education in the United States, particularly for students from lower-income and lower-middle income families.” (Gladieux and Perna, n.d., 25) These consequences are seldom understood by the consumer until it is much too late. Most borrowers have no history or pretext with credit to understand the large sums of money they are accumulating in debt. So they have no way to fully realize how long it will take to repay a loan. The young student often does not understand how the interest on the loan can make a small loan grow if the student cannot repay the loan or has deferred payments. Worse yet, today’s students have no guarantee they will have economic prosperity to repay a loan.

Throughout the United States, student loans have been show to drag this economy down. Student loans have been a big problem through many of the years. It has been showing a trend and it is raising and exceeding many of the debt types each year. Many problems that students that have loans cause are, “ 20 percent of respondents indicated they cannot get a loan for other items, are unable to purchase a home, and student loan debt negatively impacts their credit. 18 percent of individuals indicated they are living paycheck to paycheck, “drowning” in debt, and have a large debt load. 13 percent indicated they have a lower quality of life and are unable to afford the extra things. 12 percent indicated they are unable to save for their retirement or their children’s education and feel less secure.” Students that have

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 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.

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

The cost of tuition at colleges and universities in the United States has seen a steady increase over last several decades. Since the 1980s, the list price for tuition has risen by roughly 7% per year, while the inflation rate has averaged 3.2% per year. The effect of this mismatch in the rise of the cost of tuition versus the average inflation rate has had monumental effects on the ability of students to afford a higher education. This, in turn, has forced more students to take out increasingly large amounts of loans, causing for the national student loan debt to grow to over $1 trillion dollars, more than total credit card

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

In 2016, an accumulation of almost 1.4 trillion dollars of student loan debt was outstanding in America (Kess). Students from all over the nation, and the world for that matter, are going to higher education without the financial ability to do so. One of the few options for financial aid available to these prospective college students is to take out student loans to pay for the high tuition of most universities and colleges. While these loans are a modality for attending higher education, they often come with strings. Along with being several thousand dollars in debt, interest also accumulates into the total amount of the owed financial total. Until these loans are repaid the interest keep accumulating and the debt grows. With debt still affecting students negatively well after they finish their higher education, the price of college tuition should be abated.