No matter how much students work to pay off their tuition, chances are they are still stuck paying for it. There is no easy way around debt, which is the main reason why many students begin to obtain jobs in college. CNBC reporter, Stacy Rapacon explains that new studies show tuition is unavoidable because no matter how much we work, it still isn’t enough to pay off tuition. Tuition continues to rise year after year, less and less students are able to actually afford going to a college they desire. In “Degrees of Debt”, by New York Times editor and reporter, Andrew Martin, the discussion of college students taking out loans are due to the belief of investment. However Martin argues that in the end, once they received their education, they still have a …show more content…
big burden to worry about.
Those who take on student debt when enrolling into college, result in needing to find a job immediately after school in hopes of paying their debt off soon. Reporter of Upromise, Diane M. Whitmore, published the article “Learning and Earning: Working in College”, which offers college students statistics of their working experience due to tuition. She states that “after four years, college students who had worked 20 hours per week at an off-campus job were 8.7 percentage points less likely to have graduated than non-workers.” Students who cannot afford to have a large amount of debt, work and therefore have less time for their studies.
When students submit their financial aid information, and federal aid investigates whether or not a family has a sufficient family income. From their results of seeing an average income, they trust that you will be able to pay for most of your tuition. However, the average family income is not nearly enough to pay for a student’s tuition, along with the rest of the house responsibilities. The average annual family income is rising very slowly, compared to the rise
of college tuition. The non-profit organization, College Board, releases updated information on colleges and statistics on important factors students need to know. College Board released that the average family income is slightly rising at 0.4%, however it’s not as fast as the rise of tuition. Income is rising, which is a positive thing, however it’s not rising enough in order to help a college student pay for tuition. The advantage of the high price over the income, is negatively affecting students and families because as tuition rises 3.5%, which does not correspond with the average family annual income (College Board). Students work busy jobs to not only pay off their tuition, but to financially help their families. Senior associate editor of The Atlantic, Gillian B. White, writes the article “The Struggle of School-Work Balance”. She explains that working throughout the year is a necessity for students in order to provide for their family, due to the low family income. In “More College Students are Working While Studying”, Rapacon states that students are working full-time, and argues that is still not enough to cover their financial status at home. The workload from full-time students still won’t generate enough to cover the bill. College student’s main priority isn’t to support their family. Their commitment and attention should be on their studies and fulfill their goals they set out when they enrolled.
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,
Martin and Lehren’s article “A Generation Hounded by the Soaring Cost of College” addresses the issue faced by current and former college students dealing with large amounts of debt due to student loans. The article presents the reader with stories of former college students who have either graduated or dropped out, and their struggle to pay off their student loans. The article also talks about issues such as students not being informed about high amounts of student loans and why student debts have increased. Martin and Lehren also make the issue of student debt more intimidating by giving examples of high amounts of student loans students have had. The article gives a very hard reality check to anyone reading as to how bad the problem of student debt is.
The second chapter of this book advocates students to attend college, even if they must take on a moderate amount of student loan debt. They give statistics showing the tremendous gap in wages between a college graduate and a non-college graduate. The third chapter of this book argues the opposite viewpoint of the second chapter. The author states that the cost of college today is too high and that there are too many college graduates flooding the job market causing many of them to go unemployed or seek low level jobs that do not pay enough to pay off their student loans. Both of these chapters will help me to show the two main ...
A majority of people believe that graduating from college will result in a well-paying job. Unfortunately, a degree will not secure a job for many graduates. In the U.S., the jobless rate for college graduates in 2012 was 7.7 percent, and has further increased in the past five years(Robinson). With such a large pool of unemployed citizens for employers to choose from, recent graduates are facing fewer opportunities for work due to little or no previous work experience(Robinson). Although many graduates are faced with unemployment, the majority do receive the opportunity to work. Sadly, many must work jobs they do not enjoy for salaries that make it difficult to make ends meet(Debate). Students are faced with mortgage-sized debts upon graduation, making it difficult for them to start businesses, buy cars or houses, or make other investments that would better the
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 skyrocketing price of college tuition is causing a tremendous concern over whether higher education will be a viable financial concept to the average citizen over the next decades. Some families have opted to explore different means of obtaining a higher education for their children as these costs escalate. There is overwhelming evidence that colleges need to restructure the way they are run because tuition prices are increasing at a rapid rate causing changes in the way students fund their education and in the way the government provides educational subsidies.
Employers consider a degree necessary for getting a job at their company. However, not many people can afford college. The solution is to take out loans, then college becomes affordable. These loans create a whole different issue, student loan debt. This can affect people their whole lifetime and has been happening for years upon years. But, in the more recent years America is starting to shed more light onto the issue and are becoming curious on why colleges charge twenty five thousand dollars, or more, for a year of education. Many different countries offer free college, but in America student loan debt keeps getting worse.
and tuition plays a major role in students’ decision for attending college. Students according to a 2008 national survey of roughly 1800 students who qualified to attend college 1000 students of those 1800 did not attend college at all. The main reason claimed by 80 percent of the “non-college-goers” was due to lack of money, more especially not enough grant aid. Although a student was well qualified to attend college having no financial aid made their choice to attend impossible. On the other hand, students who couldn’t receive enough grant aid sought other alternatives to go into college like getting loans. Depending on the amount of years one chooses to attend college it can rack up to an unbelievable amount. According to Edvisors, a financial aid website, “The class of 2015 graduated with $35,051 in student debt on average.” Imagine that! It’s no wonder that the students who didn’t receive enough grant aid chose not to attend college. It was because they did not want to accumulate a debt that in most cases they would have to pay throughout their lives, claiming that tuition cost is too much for
With tuition rising every year, students face the challenge paying the debt achieving a college degree comes with. “Student debt surpassed credit-card debt in June 2010 for the first time in history, rising to about $830 billion — or nearly 6 percent of the nation 's annual economic output”(Clemmitt, Marcia). Not everyone has a ton of money just laying around. Being that financial trouble is the biggest problem for students, they begin to question whether college is worth it or not. In recent years, students have taken out loans to help with expenses. Most students choose to attend a community and junior college to help minimize the debt. Even after graduating with a degree, students still face the struggle of finding a job in this economic time. For higher class families this may not be a problem to them. But for the middle class and low income families, they face tougher times being that they don 't have the financial help like higher class families do. For the middle class and low income families, it makes more sense attending a community and junior college rather than a four year university.
In today’s society, the cost of attending college to earn a degree continues to increase, which results in an increase in students needing financial aid. A determining factor in how much a student receives is dictated by the Earned Family Contribution (EFC). The EFC is mandated by Congress as a part of the required Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that every student must fill out in order to apply to college. Steve Cohen, an Op-Ed Contributor to the New York Times and author of “A Quick Way to Cut College Costs” believes that the EFC is flawed in that it does not accurately depict how much a family can contribute to the cost of a student’s education. Cohen’s solution is for Congress and the President to drastically cut the EFC to realistically reflect the unequal rise in college tuition and average household income.
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.
A college education has become the expectation for most youth in the United States. Children need a college education to succeed in the global economy. Unfortunately for the majority of Americans the price of an education has become the equivalent to a small house. The steep tuition of a college education has made it an intimidating financial hurdle for middle class families. In 1986-1987 school year the average tuition at a private university was $20,566 (adjusted to 2011 dollars) while in 2011 the average cost was $28,500 for an increase of 38.6%. Similarly in public universities there has been an increase in tuition: in the 1986-1987 school year the average tuition at a public university was $8,454 (adjusted to 2011 dollars) while in 2011 the average cost was actually $20,770 for an increase of 145.7%. Most families who are able to save for college try to do so, therefore their children are not left with large amounts of debt due to loans. Nevertheless, families are only able to save on average around $10,000, which is not enough to pay for a full educ...
Increasing college costs has proven to be a major issue for those who pursue higher learning. With institutions raising tuition and fees, students are forced to make life-altering sacrifices to repay soaring student loans. We have come to a pivotal place in history, where individuals have no choice but to minimize or delay important life decision’s such as moving home with their parents to save money, becoming home owners, retirement saving and forfeiting higher education. The impact of increasing college costs has become so severe that it is at the forefront of politicians, political agenda, inducing conversation and policies like the revised income-driven repayment program. The program proposed to help combat the effects of massive student loans.
Students who have taken out loans have suffered dearly throughout their lives after graduating, and there is incontrovertible evidence to back this claim up. Many students are so deep in debt that they only feel secure by remaining in school. One student admits “The only way I feel I can survive financially is by going back to ...
College students become discouraged and demotivated to go on to the next journey in their lives after they graduate college once they see the horrible student loan debt they are in. A 2002 study found that 17 percent of student loan borrowers reported their loans had a significant impact on their career plans (Baum). In addition, 52 percent of people said they either strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that their “need to pay student loan debt is hampering my ability to further my career” (Lanza). When someone borrows money, it immediately pushes back the individual’s life and becomes a priority before many things to continue their life journey. A survey recently conducted by American Student Assistance (ASA) found that those with student debt are delaying decisions to buy a home, get married, have children, save for retirem...