UNITED STATES─There is indeed a crisis in our country right now; too many people are trapped with excessive student loan debt. Yes, I am one of those individuals, and it’s sickening to discover that I know people who have been in school in shorter time frames than myself and have more debt than me. It is one thing to have massive debt as a graduate, law or doctoral student, but if you’re an undergraduate and you have more debt than a grad student, that’s problematic.
For starters, as an undergraduate, I rarely took out any student loans. My goal was to take as little as possible because I knew I would have to pay the funds back. As a graduate student, that is slightly different. Why? The cost of school is so expensive, unless you have thousands in the bank, a full scholarship or parents willing to fork the bill, you do what you have to do to survive. A vast majority of my loans are a direct result of me pursuing my graduate studies. Yeah some people take out more than they should in student loans for their own personal gain. I have one goal only when taking out a student loan: to pay for tuition. Any time I can pay out of my pocket to cover my school expenses I take advantage. Why? That means I eliminate the notion of having to pay thousands of dollars after school concludes.
However, we should address and even bigger issue: why is the cost of a college education so expensive. I mean I recall when I started my undergraduate studies quite some time ago, a 3-4 credit class only cost $600-$700 a semester. Now it’s like $2-$3k to take a 3-4 credit course. A graduate course costs even more so you may as well double that cost people. Colleges and universities raise the cost of tuition for students year after year, with no exact reasoning as to why the price had to increase.
Don’t they realize people are struggling to send one student to college? Can you imagine sending two kids to college and having to pay out of pocket? Yeah, that is going to break the bank a lot sooner than you can imagine. The only caveat is those who pursue a higher education to become a teacher or to serve the country. In doing so, that student loan debt is erased. That is one plus, but the problem is not everyone aims to be a teacher to risk their lives to fight for the country. So where does that leave the rest of us?
Well we’re scrapping, busting our bums to pay tuition, praying to land a decent paying job right after school commences and saving every penny in our possession just in case something unexpected pops up that puts a ripple into things. Should the government potentially do more to reduce student loan debt? I absolutely think so, but at its core, the cost of a college education should not be as expensive as it currently is.
Please explain to me why it costs $100,000 for 4 years of studies where a vast amount of the information you absorb has no major impact on your life? I cannot explain it; I don’t think anyone can besides the fact that college is like a business; the goal is to make as much money as possible and there is not much that can be done to change that.
I’m a firm believer that if you pay federal or state taxes, you should be able to go to college anywhere you want in this country, but that wouldn’t be right? Why? Then you wouldn’t be able to separate the haves from the have nots people!
