Student Debt Dbq Essay

Throughout adolescence, there is a constant reminder of how important a college education is if one wants to be successful in life. Unfortunately, after generations of working hard and developing massive amounts of student debt, people begin to question the quality of a degree. The significance of college degrees gets muddled underneath the amount of stress student debt puts on people while they are pursuing individual dreams. In some cases, because of the amount of debt that has accumulated, people are never able to improve their lives after working hard through school. In this study, the effects of rising tuition are looked at through the perspectives of five individuals. There are many different types of people that are affected by the

rising cost of tuition, but for this study the focus group chosen was undergraduate women who are pursuing a career in a science field. After understanding the current issue of rising college costs, and seeing how it affects the chosen college students, it can be understood that there is an inequality among students preventing them from changing their social class.
Before explaining how people experience the rising cost of college, there has to be an understanding of the situation at hand. The Dewey Project exercise allows for this better understanding by providing five documents that highlight certain causes of rising tuition. There are some causes more severe than others but in the end one of the main causes of rising college costs, outlined in the Dewey Project, is excessive spending done by universities.
One of the first examples of excessive spending provided in the Dewey Project was brought up in Document 1.

The Delta Cost Project at the American Institute for Research is referred to in this document and according to their research, most of the rise in tuition is driven directly by a rise in spending. For example, they mention that colleges are spending money on luxurious new projects while competing to attract more students, and consequently having students pay higher tuitions to cover the cost of the projects. The document further explains excessive spending by providing examples such as remodeling gyms and expanding dorm rooms to show the severity of the

issue.
In the fourth document of the Dewey Project, there is a theory explained that first came to be during the Reagan administration. The Secretary of Education, William Bennett, hypothesized that for every dollar increase in subsidies there was a dollar increase in tuition. Whether or not there was state support for higher education, institutions raised their tuition to cover spending costs, requiring students to pay the same if not more as before the subsidies. In the end it was institutional spending causing a raise in tuition more than a lack of government funding.
The issue of excessive spending majorly affects college students all over the nation. There are students who can barely afford their tuition before extraneous developments, limiting the number of students who are able to attend college once the cost shift occurs.
As stated above, the focus group chosen for this study was undergraduate females pursuing a career in a science field.

Many people believe that females in college are apart of a minority group, particularly females in math and science fields. This focus group was chosen in hopes to understand how rising cost of college can affect minority groups more than other groups. A total of five people were studied over the course of a week. They were asked a number of questions from having to explain their views on the rising cost of college to how they were being affected specifically as a female in their field. The group of females were studied throughout the day, during a handful of classes and daily

activities.
The first female interviewed had not been completely aware of the current rising cost of college. Being in her first year of college, “Haley” had already taken out four student loans in an effort to afford attending the college she chose. There is this worry about the quality of her life after college because of the debt she knows she will be in. When the issue of higher tuition was brought to her attention during this study, Haley began to worry more because her parents are not helping her out as much as they are her brother. She explained that her parents never took her chosen major as seriously as she thought she deserved and because of their lack of support Haley had no choice but to take out the amount of loans available to her. She also happens to be working two small jobs to cover living expenses and institutional fees.
Of the five women interviewed, there was one that was well aware of the rising cost of college. “Jenna” provided numerous examples in hopes for people to understand how she was being affected by the rising cost of college. Jenna explained that she is constantly billed extra fees because of the field she chose. There were different charges every quarter that were always unexpected and unnecessary according to her. Additionally, Jenna recalled having to pay for on-campus housing and halfway through her semester she was billed another fee that housing services never explained. Surprises such as unexpected housing fees and charges from her science classes made Jenna realize that there she was paying for things she “should not have been paying for”.
Of the five females interviewed, four of them were quite aware of the rising cost of college. They all had to take out students loans over the past year and they are all still struggling to afford books and equipment required for classes. Throughout this study however, although it may still be true, there was little evidence showing these girls are at a disadvantage because they are female. Two subjects did mention that they were not being as supported from their parents, but aside from those statements, no observations were made to further support the idea.
The qualitative data gathered in this study sheds light on just how capitalistic western societies are. Through the different perspectives obtained from the five women studied, it can be understood that colleges are currently making more profits than students are making better futures. By viewing students as a market for profit, colleges are creating a much bigger issue than merely having an uneducated society; they are creating uneven developments between social classes.
It is known that the United States is a country of freedom and equality. However, in the United States, the rising cost in college is beginning to give an unfair advantage to higher social class creating an inequality among the nation. College students that come from more affluent backgrounds are more likely to have their higher education covered for by their parents according to the data gathered from the five females studied. When their tuition is paid for, these college students are given the opportunity to focus on merely their education.
Unfortunately, for students who do not have the luxury of their parents paying their tuition, student loans can create a financial burden that many people face for the rest of their life. The burden of student loans prevents college graduates from ever climbing the social ladder that they initially worked so hard to do. They will have had to work just as hard if not harder than individuals that do not have student loans, only to see those same individuals succeed more in life.
The inequality being created from rising college costs adds to countless other inequalities that continuously allows a massive separation between social classes to continue to exist. When colleges deny people the chance to afford higher education, they also deny people the possibility to improve their life. Western culture puts so much value on the importance of acquiring a college degree, but at the same time colleges are preventing numerous people from achieving something that in today’s society is seen as “absolutely necessary to have”. If such a small aspect of life, like having a college degree, is going to provide people with ample more opportunities in life, people should be given equal opportunity to obtain such a thing.