Student loan debt makes up a large portion of the debt in this country today. Many defaulted loans are the demise of high interest rates, poor resources to students in educating them on other avenues and corruption in the governmental departments that oversee education and financing. There are many contributing factors that lead to the inability to pay off student loans which need government reform to protect the borrower’s best interests.
Before World War II student loans did not exist. After the war people started chasing the American dream. College education was no longer available just to the wealthy but everyone had access to student loans. Many people that fought in the war did not graduate from high school. When the war was over, they didn’t have jobs, money or education. This is how the GI Bill started (2). In 1965 the higher education Act was implemented which provided funding through grants and scholarship programs. This increased the numbers of adults completing high school and college which led to higher paying jobs. In 1970 the average tuition was only $585 per year (4). Today tuition for a moderate in-state college averages $22,826 according to collegedata.com. Private colleges average around $44,750. This includes housing, books, tuition, fees and supplies (college data). Without financial aid, the principal without interest on a four year college will cost between $90,000 and $180,000. Young couples today that both have college degrees typically both start out with student loans. If you double the figures on a student loan, they start off with payments as high as a mortgage!
Today two thirds of college students need to take out loans to pay their tuition. Inflation on college tuition has more t...
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... They have paid into social security all of their working life and shouldn’t have to have that reduced by repaying student loans.
University costs continue to increase as well. An interesting concept to reducing these costs would be to reduce the requirements for degree completion. Decreasing the requirements would allow students to graduate sooner and begin to pay off their student loans sooner.
Is it all worth it? According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, an employee with a college degree will earn about $457 more per week which calculates out to about $1 million over the span of one’s career. It is definitely worth pursuing a degree to be competitive in today’s job market. One of the best ways to eliminate some of the debt is to apply to apply for as many grants and scholarships that are available to assist with reducing your cost for college.
Many Americans are seeking an ideal presidential candidate for our next election; furthermore, many college students seek a candidate that has their best interest in mind, leading many to focus on Bernie Sanders and his ideas for an affordable education system. In the article, The Myth of the Student Loan Crisis, Nicole Allan and Derek Thomas focus the article on the risky investments of college and questioning the rising debt levels as a national crisis. While Allan and Davis claim the risk of college and mention rising debt levels as a national crisis; however, Allan and Davis use charts to support their stance while avoiding the issues Americans need to focus on, such as the rising cost of college, “justifiable debt”, and the cost of those not contributing to society.
In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in student enrollment in higher education after high school effecting the need for financial aid for all students. Education has become a growing part in America where more students want to better their lives with a college education. However, the cost of college tuition has increased and more students find themselves struggling to pay off the enormous tuition rates. In a recent study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, student debt has reached $1 trillion in federal loan debt. Student loan debt has crippled the economy and students are struggling to pay off federal loans. In order to help students with the high tuition rates of college the government and universities offer
To understand the student debt crisis, one must first understand what caused it and what results from it. College undergraduates use student loans to finance the cost of tuition, room, board, transportation, and personal expenses while attending (Gage and Lorin). Student loans are different from other forms of debt because basic consumer rights like bankruptcy protection don’t apply to students who default on their loans. As a result, students are virtually locked into their debt, offering them little to no ability to refinance it. Solutions to debt problems like consolidation are available to students but that process doesn’t involve shopping for a better deal from competing lenders like it does in other debt areas. Therefore, interest rates often remain high and the loans remain with the original lender (Vanegeren). As Kayla Webley expl...
If you are not paying completely for your college tuition, then your parents are helping and or you took out loans and eventually have to pay them back. Seeing how most college freshman are 18 or even 17, means you do not have much money saved if any at all and your parents are stuck paying for everything you need, going to college for more than four years or even at is going to cost you, or should I say your parents. Undergraduate loan borrowing crossed the $100 billion edge in 2010 and aggregate loans surpassed $1 trillion U.S. dollars a year ago. “This (student loans) increase has put a disproportionate burden on students and their families—hence loans. The median household income for a family of four is about 24,300 in 1980, 41,400 in 1990 and 54,200 in 2000. In addition to the debt that students take on there are few statistics on how much parents pay and how they pay it” (Williams 2006). It's not advanced science. It's the economy, Undergraduates and laborers looking for more schooling are obtaining lots of cash through government and private advance projects to help take care of the continued raising expense of school and preparing for careers. Much of the time, parents in charge of the undergraduate loans are in or are close to
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, college tuition and relevant fees have increased by 893 percent (“College costs and the CPI”). 893 percent is a very daunting percentage considering that it has surpassed the rise in the costs of Medicare, food, and housing. As America is trying to pull out of a recession, many students are looking for higher education so they can attain a gratified job. However, their vision is being stained by the dreadful rise in college costs. College tuition is rising beyond inflation. Such an immense rise in tuition has many serious implications for students; for example, fewer students are attending private colleges, fewer students are staying enrolled in college, and fewer students are working in the fields in which they majored in.
Often times a celebratory present to oneself immediately after college graduation is a brand new car. Yet the price of buying a brand new car is about the equivalent to the amount of debt they have gone into via student loans. In the essay “A lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely” Robin Wilson discusses in detail about how student loan debt is moreso a necessary tool rather than something to be completely avoided. It is scary for me to think that as an adult I can be over $35,000 in debt immediately after college. I fully understand that paying for college is difficult and scary, so the idea of using student loans is extremely appealing. However, I believe that borrowing in the form of student loans is okay in moderation, making it the key to
It is a norm and expectation in society today for students to pursue higher education after graduating from high school. College tuition is on the rise, and a lot of students have difficulty paying for their tuitions. To pay for their tuitions, most students have to take out loans and at the end of four years, those students end up in debt. Student loan debts are at an all time high with so many people graduating from college, and having difficulties finding jobs in their career fields, so they have difficulties paying off their student loans and, they also don’t have a full understanding of the term of the loans and their options if they are unable to repay.
The first ever federal government backed student loan program began in the 1950s under the National Defense Act (Sourmaidis). This was primarily offered as an incentive for students to pursue math and science degrees to compete with Soviet Russia after the launch of the Sputnik satellite (Sourmaidis). In that year, the number of college graduates were only 432,058 (Sourmaidis) and ever since the demand continually increased as did price. This trend allowed for the student loan crisis to occur which is a problem we face today.
Rep. Dick Zimmer predicts that at the current rate of rising college costs, by the year 2000 the average price tag for attending a four-year public university will be over $50,000 and the average four-year cost at a private university will exceed $104,000. (College costs continue to climb, 14) During the years between 1970 and 1994, the consumer price index increased just under four times, but the average cost of tuition, room, and board at four-year public colleges went up nearly five times, and private college costs rose almost seven times, from just under $3,000 to over $20,000. According to the U.S. News Cost of College Index, the average middle-class worker must now labor 95 days to pay for a year at an average private college. Two decades ago, it took slightly more than half as long to pay for the same education. (Elfin, 90) By 1994, the average four-year cost at a private college was over three times the typical family's annual income. (Reiland, 59) However, The College Board recently announced that US college tuition and fees for 1996-97 increased at nearly the same rate as they had in the previous year, adding that the more than $50...
Higher education costs have been increasing at a rapid pace, faster than inflation for the economy as a whole, for the past fifty years. It started in the 1960’s when the federal government passed the Higher Education Act to increase the amount of people able to afford and attend college. Regardless of the Unites States Government efforts to increase the affordability of college, federal aid programs have not risen to expectations due to the ever-increasing college prices. To lower the price of college, the government needs to cut back on student financial spending to go only to the lowest income families and create tax incentives for families to start saving up on their own.
The cost of college tuition continues to increase each year. If this keeps increasing the way it has been, students will be indebted the rest of their life. Author of “The Looming Student Loan Crisis”, Jackson Toby states that student loans have increased along with the increase of tuition costs. In 2004, the average unpaid student debt was approximately $18,650...
It is a proven fact that the price4 for college tuition has increased drastically in the recent years. As a result, acquiring the means to pay for college has become a troublesome problem in many households. Depending on student loans is a popular method to counter the problem, yet paying back the debt is a problem of its own. Although tuition may serve as a challenge, there are several solutions to limit debt.
...ggled with high debt burdens that adversely impedes their lives. Also, it will threaten to the affordability and success of higher education in the US. I believe that through my research paper in can prompt American college students to make wise and informed decision on financing higher education. Moreover, it will make the education policymakers aware that the rising education debt has a serious implication for college access and affordability, prompting them to decrease total student loan debt amounts by holding down college tuition and increasing the federal student aids.
With the rapid growth of college tuition, it has become an important issue in higher education. College Tuition is simply defined as the charge or fee for instruction, at a private school or a college or a university. Most people agree today that college tuition is too high or that it needs to be completely dismissed. There are some however, that may disagree with the claim about college tuition and state that college tuition is necessary for college growth, and it’s primary purpose is to pay for college expenses to support the institution financially. Research shows that college tuition is too high and that debt has become a standard in America after attending post-secondary school.
College and Universities do not see the idea of cutting down the price as a requirement because all students are eligible for student loans. Because taking out a student loan seems logical at the time, more students do it without knowing how much debt they will be in after they graduate, making the price of college even greater. The primary reason the cost of education has increased is supply and demand. As college becomes more of a necessity to younger people and their families, the colleges can raise the cost knowing they will have students applying for admission either way. Upon enduring countless measurements to be accepted into a college of their choice, over half the students who are approved drop out each year because of student loans.