It is common for people who are not attending college to believe that college is easy, but in reality the average student faces a lot of challenges. With the increase in required college degrees for well paying occupations, more people are searching for a higher education. The rise in demand for a college degree has had adverse effects on the average college student. The types of challenges vary from student to student but some are better equipped than others, making it more challenging for those facing them alone. I believe some of the most difficult type of challenges are financial and lack of study skills.
Financial challenges may be one of the highest reported struggles coming from college student today. One aspect of financial struggle
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Family pressure and lack of family support are a few of the many causes of college student to stress about their financial standing needed to attend college. A peer in my class, Alex, is the youngest child; he is being pressured by his father to attend college because he is the last of his siblings to have a chance at working towards a well paying job. Alex also faces family pressures to attain a high grade point average in hope of earning benefits towards insurance and other expenses. Yet, he still lacks financial support towards his college education. Even if Alex were to get financial help from his family, he would still feel the pressure to attain a job to reduce the stress about making financial ends meet. I also face similar challenges as Alex, in my situation I have had a lack of support. My mother is a single parent with a high school diploma being her highest degree of education. With the lack of financial income that comes with only having to rely on my mother income, she wanted me to start working to help her pay bills and other pending expenses. She understands why I am pursuing a college education, but also knows that with me working full time can help ease our financial stress, which if attending college will only increase our current expenses. Putnam states in the book Our Kids, “To be sure, less educated parents, with narrower cultural horizons and less familiarity with advance education,
Going off to college is probably one of the best things a person can do to further their education. The promise of a degree from a university seems achievable but is shadowed with the many challenges that come with a higher edification. Often many college students find themselves bothered by these obstacles which can determine whether the college student succeeds or not. There are many endeavors in college but it depends on how the student reacts to these situations.
Life is never easy, no matter how hard we try to short cut and escape the inevitable difficulties. After college is when life sets in, when work becomes a necessity and we all begin to find a place to settle down. People respond differently to different situations. Some of us embrace the freedom and the ability to earn money and spend money indiscriminately. Others crumple under the social pressures placed on us.
It is the American dream to get out of high school and to start working towards your degree, right? Perusing a degree in the United States is not as dream like for some students. Many factors such as the learning environment, where you come from, and the knowledge and will power can shape how the higher education experience can go. While not all of these factors necessarily point to a rough or tough college experience, but also show that we as a nation could help our students be more educated and prepared to pursue and finish a degree. All students should be given equal opportunity and tools to become a successful member of society.
To being with, college students today are economic pressure by school system and because of that student have become enslaved by financial aid department. This is an excellent quote by Zinsser he states: “they are the authentic voices of a generation that is panicky to succeed” (Zinsser 449). Student are spending more money than the actual value of their degree, on average student are spending 20-30 thousand each year just for tuition. Recently
"The main barrier is financial." (source F). Usually, the idea of becoming in debt at such a young age scares some, making college feel like it's no longer an option. Over time this has depreciated entirely what college is about and how much a better quality of life financially, socially etc. it can give you in the long run. Based off statistics 86% say that college has been a good investment for them personally (source F). For example for monetary payoff college graduates with a four year degree claim to be earning $20,000 more per year compared to people who did not attend college which believe they are earning $20,000 less per year. The quality of life, financially, is clear. With just a four year degree, colege graduates are living $20,000 better than that of a person who did not attend
Although perhaps supportive of higher education their parents and Family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling. In families, role assignments about work, family, religion and community are passed down through the generations creating intergenerational continuity. When a family member disrupts this system by choosing to attend college, he or she experiences a shift in identity, leading to a sense of loss. Not-prepared for this loss, many first-generation students may come to develop two different identities one for home and another for college, the student might feel he needs to do better in college then his parents. So the student might start feeling the pressure, that there is too much going on in his life and at home, because the parent is putting too much pressure to do better but the student just can’t stay focus on their studies, and they eventually will develop low grades he or she might just drop out of school, the parent might want them to work and go to school that could be difficult for the student. A student need to be successful in college to succeed, parent needs to be more supportive, and maybe their child can finish
Many are expecting college to be expensive. They worry about how much they can afford and having to make payment arrangements. Some go as far as to think only rich people can afford to go to college. There is a thought that you have to have good credit to get a loan that takes forever to pay back. Many are not aware of the programs that are o...
Once a person graduates from high school they are left with a difficult decision, wither to go to college or not. Some families this is not an option, their kid will go no matter what, but many students do not want to go to school and have so much student debt by the time they finish that they will have to pay off that they decide that college is not worth it. According to Craig Smith in his article in Education Digest he says, “too many families cannot afford to send their children to college so the student is left with making the decision on wither to go to college and collect debt or just skip college altogether” (Smith 42). He has a good point. Too many students feel like they have to pay so much yet they are not really getting much out of it. Smith later on in his article states, “We must stop balancing our state and institutional budgets on the backs of students and families” (Smith 46). School should not be all about money, it should be about helping the students get the education that they need so they can make it out in the big world. If a student is so worried about how they are going to pay their school bill they are not going to be focusing on their class work and it ...
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,
It may conclude that student who pay by student loan feels more pressure to getting a job after graduate to be able to pay back for the loans. This motivates them to study hard because they realize that how much the importance of academic performance to get a job.” What does this mean? Those who are having to use loans are more pressured to find a job and work to pay off their debt, seeing as how it could last a lifetime and are having to work hard to maintain financial aid. Yet, for those who go to college with their parents funding their education, there isn’t as much pressure to succeed because the family has the ability to fund
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care 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.
Steve Cohen shows the disparity between the rising cost of college and a family’s capability to afford it. Cohen explains “Tuition has risen almost 1,200 percent in the last 35 years, and the sticker price for many four-year private colleges and out-of-state public universities exceeds $250,000.” Moreover, he goes on to say that even at public universities, it is about $80,000 for four years for tuition and other college related expenses. Later in his article, Cohen explains how this leaves middle-class families in a very uncomfortable situation. The parents or other money-making entities in the household want their student to go to college and earn a degree, but now there can be an element of stress in figuring out how the fees will be paid for. Furth...
First of all, many high school graduates cannot handle college. Isabel V. Sawhill and Stephanie Owen describe college as a place, “one can obtain a traditional four-year bachelor’s degree”. The work load outside of the classroom could be compared to working a full time job. For example, if a student is enrolled in four college courses and is in class a minimum of four hours the student should spend at least four to six hours of studying. This may be extremely agitating and stressful to a student that is not good at studying. The new college student may realize that the schoolwork is too much for him to handle and instead drop out. In Pharinet’s blog post, Is College for Everyone? He states that “…it is estimated that in the U.S., approximately 50% of students who begin college never graduate. There exist students who are not yet ready for the academic and financial challenges of college. There exist students who do not have the desire for college or learning.” This statement is important because if 50% of students that begin college never gradua...
As the numbers of college graduates employment have increased for each years, many people have being debating that whether everyone should have college education and whether college education still worth it for everyone. Some people found that they did not gain the benefits that they wish from college education, and some people found that they still could not find the job they desire after they spent all the money they have on college education and being in heavy debts. Therefore, people started to believe that colleges are not designed for everyone, and force oneself to attend colleges could lead to negative outcomes. Consequently, people who cannot afford to attend colleges, who do not have adequate academic skills to be successful in colleges,