Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Student loan debt in america essay
Student debt effect on students
Student loan debt in america essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Student loan debt in america essay
Make a Difference
In many cultures it is believed forgiveness is a gate to paradise. In the united states the total outstanding student loan debt is $1.41 trillion +, and the average federal student loan default rate is 11.8%(Lendedu). Graduating college is a rewarding achievement, but also a heavy bag to carry on your shoulder. Having a bag of debt weighing you down can cause many complications from not being able to purchase your first home, or going on vacations with your family. A community will strive and become its full potential if they are able to continue educating their fellow neighbors. Forgiving student loans by completing community service is a door that should have been opened decades ago. There are many beneficial reasons such as, cleaning up the environment, coming closer as community, appreciating the smaller things in life, starting your career without a hefty load on your shoulder, not having a debt ratio, and seeing more high school students attend college after their
…show more content…
Many lives have been taken from being in debt, and has been described as being submerged under water with only a broken bendy straw supplying you air. Depending on the career of choice student debt could either hurt an individual or be nothing to them financially. If someone decided to set their life on obtaining a government payed job such as a teacher it would take majority of their check each month to repay their debt. A teacher can make up to thirty-four thousand a year, or two thousand six hundred a month. If that teacher has student loan debt of sixty thousand she could expect to pay one thousand five hundred, leaving her with only one thousand left to pay for her housing and other responsibilities she may have. Many professional jobs require an induvial to obtain a bachelor’s degree. Attending a four-year school can roughly put you in debt around fifty thousand dollars, and that doesn’t include your cost of living, and
One statistic that Owen and Sawhill presented was “Hamilton Project research shows that 23- to 25-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees make $12,000 more than high school graduates but by age 50, the gap has grown to $46,500 (Figure 1). When we look at lifetime earnings—the sum of earnings over a career—the total premium is $570,000 for a bachelor’s degree and $170,000 for an associate’s degree. (Owen, Sawhill pg 641). Owen and Sawhill also mention that “with tuitions rising faster than family incomes, the typical college student is now more dependent than in the past on loans, creating serious risks for the individual student and perhaps for the system as a whole, should widespread defaults occur in the future. Federal student loans now total close to $1 trillion, larger than credit card debt or auto loans and second only to mortgage debt on household balance sheets” (Owen, Sawhill pg 642). Basically, what the authors are saying is college is expensive, but for some career paths, the training and education received in college is necessary to have that job and the benefits outweigh the costs. With a high paying career where a college education is necessary, paying off student loans is no problem. On the other hand, people who go after low paying careers that don’t necessarily need a college degrees,
Consumers would have more money to spend and jobs would be created, increasing the opportunities for countless Americans. The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 is the best strategy for forgiving student loans. Educated Americans would be given relief after a reasonable repayment period. Student debts have troubled far too many graduates and their families. It would only be morally correct to free their debts after a ten year period while concurrently aiding the economy.
Mark Kantrowitz indicates in his article, Why the Student Loan Crisis Is Even Worse Than People Think, that “Student loan debt is increasing because government grants and support for postsecondary education have failed to keep pace with increases in college costs”(Why 1). This means that the government no longer covers for college tuition fees. College graduates are 20% more likely to work at a job that is outside of their major by the debt they are in. Kantrowitz also mentions that “students who borrow to attend college, it appears that more than a quarter (27.2%) of them are graduating with excessive debt” (Why 1). In reality, leads to student saying that the financial cost was worthless, ending up with a job that is especially not what they went to school
Having the college experience is everyone’s dream, especially High School students who are ready to get out into the world and explore. College is very important for furthering someone’s career, but no one thinks about all the costs and the stress that comes along with college. Tuition fees and costs are increasing more and more each year. Now days it feels like you have to be a millionaire just to attend a good college and get a good degree in what you were attending for. There are some students that do not have a lot of money and live on very little things with their parents, but indeed are very smart and have a 4.0 GPA. Those students are the ones that are unable to attend college if they cannot afford it. College tuition is too expensive,
An education is one of the most important tools a person can acquire. It gives them the skills and abilities to obtain a job, earn a wage, and then use that wage to better their lives and the lives of their loved ones. However, due to the seemingly exponential increase in the costs of obtaining a college degree, students are either being driven away entirely from earning a degree or taking out student loans which cripple their financial prospects well after graduation. Without question, the increasing national student loan debt is one of the most pressing economic issues the United States is dealing with, as students who are debt ridden are not able to consume and invest in the economy. Therefore, many politicians and students are calling on the government to forgive their student loan debts so that through their spending the slowly recovering economy can finally return to its pre-2008 strength.
The debt associated with higher education is one of the biggest factors of deterrence for most people who are interested in college, and it is not at all surprising. 71 % of college seniors who graduated last year had student loan debt, and the average debt for a college student with a four-year degree is $29,400.This number has gone up an average of 6 % each year. Keep in mind that this is just the average debt, and there are students who are in debt upwards of $30,000 dollars (projectonstudentdebt.org). Now in order to understand why the debt is so high it is best to break down the different costs of higher education. The first and most important of which is tuition.
Doyle states in his article, “As of this writing, the total amount of outstanding student loan debt has been estimated at $960 billion (Kantrowitz, 2011).” Right now, there is only 7.4 billion people on earth, but not all of those people are in debt. So, massive debt with not near enough people to even cover the debt on the whole planet put this issue into perspective. Many people talk about applying for scholarships but scholarships can only cover so much of the price, and even then, the scholarships aren’t guaranteed. Now what about paying off the loans? How will that take? “First, incomes vary tremendously across different choices of majors and professions. Second, the incomes of individuals starting out in the labor market vary according to the state of the labor market at that time.” There are many different factors that go into this process. As stated in the previous paragraph, those who do both work and school are more apt to pay their debt off at a quicker pace. But, how much they make and how often they paid is another contributing factor. If the average college student is making minimum wage (part time) and is going to an in
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.
Should student debt be forgiven? This question has been asked more and more throughout the years. There have been plans created to forgive student debt, and it has even been written about in popular magazines. For instance, a proposal has been made by Appleman to why student debts should be forgiven. In the short essay, “Is Forgiving Student Loan Debt a Good Idea?” by Kayla Webley, she illustrates that student debt is a problem, despite the political and economic flaws in Applebaum’s proposal.
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.
Analyzing all points of view, a great amount of individuals ask themselves why should the government forgive student debts. When our national debt is already sky-high, giving money away (forgiving) will only up the bill our country already has, according to Debt to the Penny (2014) our current debt today is $17,858,510,713,719.34. Another huge concern is the possibility of higher taxes! Government has to find a way to recover the money some way right? Why should the debt free individuals
Does the amount of student loan debt have an effect on the economy? If so would forgiving student loan debt help lower the national debt or would it just increase it? According to Mary Claire Fischer, a writer for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, “two-thirds of students who receive bachelor’s degrees leave college with an average debt of twenty-six thousand dollars” (Fischer). This means that the average student debt has doubled since 2007 (Ross 24). The total student loan debt is $1.2 trillion with $1 trillion being from federal student loans (Denhart). This debt accounts for six percent of our nation’s $16.7 trillion debt (Denhart). Since student loan debt is such a big part of the national debt, if the student defaults on their loan then the United States tax payer has to carry the burden of the loan (Denhart). Students who are graduating with debt do have a couple of different options that they can choose from. There is a six month grace period after graduation to allow the student time to find a job and programs to try to help eliminate debt. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates that one-fourth of the American workforce may be eligible for repayment or loan forgiveness programs” (Atteberry n.p.). The problem with these programs however, is that they are hard to get into and stick with.
"I 've had to compromise who I am . . . because I started down a path that I couldn 't turn away from. Student loans aren 't hope. They 're despair."(Rolling Stone) College students are the future of America, yet many of them are being punished for getting a college degree. They are told that college degrees are the right thing to do, and will get them a better job. But they are not being told about the debt that comes with it. You go visit colleges, see their campuses, and are sold. You apply for student loans, and it all seems great, except one thing went wrong, no one told you what you really needed to know about student loans. No one seems to care that the future of our country, is literally, drowning in debt. Students should be aware of what they are getting themselves into, before it is too late.
Yes, college can be a burden for someone. A college graduate can have plenty of debt by the time that they finish college. But realistically, a college graduate only went to college to be successful. To follow their dreams, to become financially reinforced. If a college graduate follows through with their dreams, their passions, then small amounts of debt shouldn’t be a problem even with starting salaries. If the adult at hand is passionate, ambitious, emotionally connected to their major and/or minor, then paying off a median amount of 30,000 dollars in debt should be only a pebble of an obstacle in their way.
Going to college is a bad decision. in a 2009 survey more than half the students stated that stress interferes with their school work. The average graduate in 2014 had a debt of $28,950. Starting from 1999, student debt has been increasing and is over 500% from then. Even though the average salaries for young people have not. In fact, since 2000, the average salary for young people has decreased to 10% over the years. College is a bad decision because it increases stress, increases debt, and a number of students are unemployed or underemployed.