According to most people I speak to, student loans are a nightmare to pay back. I was more fortunate than most while in school, receiving a number of scholarships and grants to pay for my education; however, even with all the scholarships and grants, I still had high college expenses that forced me to take out loans. From the incredibly high cost of living in and around universities, to the cost of food, textbook costs, and additional college fees, I had to borrow $45,000 over the course of 4 years. Not getting a job right after graduation, I had to look for various ways to make as much money as possible to pay all the bills flowing in through the mail. I opened studioinvisions.com, my own web development business, but even with having a …show more content…
Getting out of debt is the ultimate goal, and no one wants a student loan looming over their head the rest of their lives.
Many college students get lured in the sexy world of taking out more loan money than they need. It is so sad to see a first-year student take out $9,500.00 worth of federal Stafford loans and have less than 30 credit hours at the end of an entire academic year. How does it happen and why is it a crying shame? A first-year dependent student can take out $3,500.00 in either subsidized (which means the government pays the interests) unsubsidized (which means you 're responsible for paying the interests) Stafford loans. The total amount a dependent student can take out in Unsubsidized Stafford Loans (minus subsidized amounts) is $31,000. If the parents are denied the Parent Plus Loan due to poor credit than the student can take an additional $2,000.00 for a combined $5,500. (A dependent student is twenty-four years old or less, is not married, does not have any dependents, and is not in the military or a ward of the state.) An independent student can take out the $3,500 and an additional $6,000 totally $9,500.00. The total amount of loans an independent student can take out in Unsubsidized Stafford Loans (minus subsidized amounts) is $57,500.00 Here is "Jennifer 's Story," of how she got to $9,500.00 in Federal Stafford Loans in her first academic year. Jennifer is a 19
A problem with student loan debt is that students gain more debt because they are not able to pay off the student loans within the given time which also causes them to put certain life decisions on hold. According to Sophie Quinton debt is a problem for the recent college graduates because “There’s currently no way to get rid of federal student debt other than paying off the loans. while some borrowers are paying off their debts just fine, overall they are adding debt faster than they are shedding it”(Quinton). According to Jamaal Abdul-Alim stated that a “survey - titled Student Loan Debt: Who’s Paying the Price?- revealed a number of troubling statistics about the practical ways that student loans are impacting college graduates in their everyday lives. For instance the survey found that: 49
Why do college students takes on more debt than they need? John C. Ninfo II is a retired federal bankruptcy judge who wrote an article in the Daily Messenger called “Avoid crippling student loan debt.” on August 22 of 2013. In the article, John C. Ninfo talks about how college student are getting in a lot of debt after leaving college.. John C. Ninfo talks about ways to avoid huge amount of debts in his article. Learning about these kind of information provide to us by John C. Ninfo helps us understand ways to go about minimizing students loan.
Student loan debt has become a discouraging problem throughout today’s economical foundation. “Overall debt is falling but student loan debt is increasing year-over-year and at a much faster rate,” chief executive David Stevens told The Washington Post. “[Young graduates] are already on the margin for being able to qualify for a mortgage. If you add on a
Student loan forgiveness is a terrible idea. Sure, in an idealistic world it would be great if the country could forgive all student loan debt and thus bring relief to all students across the nation. Realistic? Not necessarily! Instead of the fairytale notion of student loan forgiveness being the answer to all the problems, America would fair better in taking the initiative in making reforms to the educational loan system that are a bit more realistic. Student loans are a massive predicament in the U.S. that can no longer be ignored. The Atlantic 311.2 article “The myth of the student-loan crisis(CHARTIST)(Statistical data)” by Allan, Nicole, and Derek Thompson states that to date student loan debt surpasses all other forms of debt with over a one trillion dollars sum (2013). The United States should stop being complacent on an issue that has affected and ruined so many lives and begin finding ways to relieve the proverbial and ever-present menacing “Student Loan” pitfall.
A great deal of students turn to college loans to help pay for their many college expenses. A study conducted by CNBC displayed that 59 percent of student’s graduation from a public four-year institution had student loans. After graduation many students found themselves under “student loan pressure”- meaning it will take years of them working in order to pay the debt. Students will invest thousands of dollars towards tuition, housing and textbooks and may be paying the school back for years following their graduation.
This is not my first time hearing about student loans and how badly they affect one’s life. Growing up, my mother always preached to me the importance of good grades and how they would benefit me in the long run. She always told me that good grades and a good ACT score would get me Scholarship money; money that I do not have to borrow. I know personally how student loan debt can affect one mentally and physically. My mom went to a private institution and could not get enough scholarships and grants pay, so she had no choice but to rely on student loans. She is a social worker making $30,000 a year, and owes more in student loans than her yearly salary. My mom like many others not only had to struggle paying loans, but also had to maintain a household.
“The United States has created a new generation of people that have more student loan debt than at any other time in our history” (Murphey). A vast majority of students are graduating with debt. On average, students are carrying loan amounts big enough to buy a nice car or cover the down payment on a house, but instead of making those investments, or starting a family or a business, they’re struggling to keep up with student loan payments (O’Malley). Student loan debt is a major problem. Student loan debt exceeded credit card debt in 2010, auto loans in 2011, and it passed the $1 trillion mark in 2012.
Debt from student loans has become the largest form of personal debt in America. Last year, 38 million American students owed more than $1.3 trillion in student loans. According to Student Loan Hero, “the average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, up six percent from last year.” Student loans were originally introduced to America in 1958 to give students, specifically those who planned to practice math and science, in college a little help to make sure they were fully able to attend the university they wanted to go to. Now 59 years later, students all over America are literally $1 trillion in debt and counting.
Therefore, banks would not deem students worthy of very large loans, as there would be no basis for the bank to assess the risk of default. So the Government set up rules for itself. It created a system that students could get tremendous sums of money in loans. The Government then created laws that the student could never clear the loans through bankruptcy. This is important; students who cannot clear the loan will remain in debt forever until it is paid back. The National Center for Public Policy did a report that “suggest that there are some significant, negative, and lasting consequences of the current system of financing higher education in the United States, particularly for students from lower-income and lower-middle income families.” (Gladieux and Perna, n.d., 25) These consequences are seldom understood by the consumer until it is much too late. Most borrowers have no history or pretext with credit to understand the large sums of money they are accumulating in debt. So they have no way to fully realize how long it will take to repay a loan. The young student often does not understand how the interest on the loan can make a small loan grow if the student cannot repay the loan or has deferred payments. Worse yet, today’s students have no guarantee they will have economic prosperity to repay a loan.
In the U.S. students are encouraged to earn a college degree, but the cost of an education turns many away. “Driven by the allure of a decent salary with a college degree, Americans borrowed to go to school. Outstanding student debt doubled from 2005 to 2010, and by 2012 total student debt in the U.S. economy surpassed $1 trillion” (Mian, Sufi 167). There are plenty of opportunities to obtain funds for college, including one of the most common, student loans. A student loan is defined as “a common way to fund education, specifically college and graduate school, and they provide educational opportunities that you otherwise may not be able to afford” (Barr). Student debt is at an all-time high in America. Over half of all lower income
In the United States today, the number of students graduating college with student loan debt is quite astonishing. In the article titled, “How the $1.2 Trillion College Debt Crisis Is Crippling Students, Parents And The Economy”, we will examine and break down the student loan debt crisis by the numbers. Today, almost two-third’s of students graduating college are graduating with an average of $26,000 in debt. For most students, $26,000 is a lot of money when the average annual income for a first year graduate is only in the mid $40,000 a year range. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, student loan debt has reached a new milestone, crossing the $1.2 trillion mark (Denhart, 2013, Introduction, par. 2). With student loan debt levels
Over the last decade student loan debt has risen substantially and is now one of the largest form of personal debt in America, totaling about one trillion dollars, with 71 percent of students who earn a bachelors degree graduating with debt, with the average amount of debt being $29,400.
As Young teenagers become adults and start College, one issue that doesn’t seem as a big deal at the moment for many students are student loans. Young college students who don’t have the money, don’t have enough scholarship money, or family who doesn’t have the money to pay, will apply for student loans each year. They amount the student receives can vary depending on the college and what the student has achieved academically. Though interest rates are low with subsidized being 4.29% and unsubsidized being 5.84% ("Federal Student Aid" Interest rates and Fees), student loans still have a huge effect on college students once they graduate. One college graduate’s story helps explain the struggles for most students:
While this is often true, it can create problems when a student does not have the money to pay for a quality education. The cost of college has risen an estimated 250-500% over the last 30 years while consumer price index has only increased by 115 percent during the same time frame (White, 2015; Eskow, 2014). The amount of student loan debt is increasing, along with the cost of college. The income of many young people today cannot keep up with the rising costs of college education and housing. Part of the problem with student loan debt begins when students choose to attend a college that exceeds their financial resources and rely on federal student loans as well as private student loans to make up the difference. Eskow found that even public colleges and universities are becoming difficult to pay for without taking out student loans often averaging $30,000 for tuition, room, and board (2014). Since many people do not have enough money to cover college education expenses, they rely on student loans, both federal and private, to fill the gap. Financial advisor Ramsey stated that often the loans students take out pay “for an off-campus standard of living, and no debt was needed to get the degree” (2013). “The Project on Student Debt reported in 2013 over ⅔ graduating seniors were leaving school with student loans” averaging approximately $28,400 (White, 2015). Taking on almost $30,000 in debt before even starting a career can have a significant impact. It can force people to get a job just to pay off the student loans, not based on what they got an education for prepared for or what they studied. This also can cause a setback in future plans, having to delay many adult milestones due to lack of
Student loan is awful, however, not being able to fulfill your potential is worse – at least that’s how I feel. Take my situation for example, I have a mundane and thankless job – it has become just a routine. Yes, I hear “I appreciate what you do” from time to time from the public, however, I just can’t get any satisfaction out of it.