In “A Lifetime Of Student Debt? Not Likely” by Robin Wilson, he talks about how student debts aren’t as bad as everyone seems to think. One of the most common reasons students default on their loans is pointed out by Wilson. He states, “the problem among students who go heavily into debt is that they are determined to attend their dream college, no matter the cost.” (257). Attending a smaller college, or even a 2-year university can help cut down on the costs. And even if that 4-year university is the only way you’ll get your future career, taking out loans to help pay for a degree isn’t something someone should be afraid of, in fact it helps more than you would think. He talks to people who had taken out several thousands of dollars in student …show more content…
A quote by Thomas Jefferson, but it still applies today. If someone wants to go into a field where they can go straight into the work field, then they have all the preparation and education that they need. Their education is proportional to their lives. For them, most of the learning would be hands on and on the job. If someone were to become one of the most talented electricians in the world, he would make far more than if he were to just get a degree and work in an office. Doing something you’re good at, and learning the different skills that will help you better yourself in the job are more important that what you could learn in a school. College isn’t for everyone, but you can learn just as much without it. Nothing beats, “The satisfaction of being good at what does for a living” (Murray 237). Education is important, it’s been taught since before Kindergarten that a good education will open more doors. And that’s true, however there are also a number of things that you learn through hard work that can’t be taught, instead “work smart...make every move count” (Rose …show more content…
In “Are Too Many People Going To College” by Charles Murray, he makes this point. By the time someone has finished college, what they have learned has become irrelevant, and the point of getting the degree is to just show that you have one. He states, “Employers do not value what the student learned, just that the student has a degree” (233). This point is very well made, and is carried throughout his article.
Even though choosing to go to college is something that takes a lot of thought, there’s still the idea of how to pay for it. That topic is touched by Robin Wilson in his article, “A Lifetime Of Student Debt? Not Likely.” In his article he talks about how taking out student loans isn’t as bad as it sounds. He argues that taking out student loans is something that you won’t notice in the future, they’ll just be like other bills that need to be paid. Most people who do have student loans, are still able to live a comfortable life, not scrabbling like most would
Student Debt, are not refuting the value of a college education, which is in fact supported by data
Along with scholarships, fellowships, and grants, student loans are an important method of financing post-secondary education. With tuition costs rising, more students are borrowing to pay for college education today. However, not all students realize the burden of paying back their student loans. Many are defaulting.
In “Should the Obama Generation Drop Out?” Charles Murray talks about how a college degree now days, is looked at higher than it should be when it comes to meeting the qualifications for a job. Most jobs that pay over minimum wage will require you to have a college degree, making it very difficult for people that either can’t afford it or do not believe in it, to get a reliable well paying job. Like Barack Obama said “It’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned to do it”(Murray 97); a large amount of people have the skills for a job but do not have the degree to show for, making them not qualified for the job. Companies will not even give you an interview if your resume does not have any type of degree on it. That situation makes life very unfair for multiple individuals. There should be some kind of certification test for applicant to take to see if he or she meets the skills needed for the job. The benefits of discarding the bachelor’s degree as a job qualification would be huge for both employers and job applicants. Therefo...
Many people would agree that our country’s young adults have and continue to incur a lifetime of debt by enrolling in college. It’s become an almost acceptable understanding that if you plan to attend college, you might as well expect to graduate with an enormous amount of debt. Robin Wilson, a reporter for the “Chronicle of Higher Education,” and author of “A Lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely” suggests student loans are very real and can be life altering.
Mark Kantrowitz indicates in his article, Why the Student Loan Crisis Is Even Worse Than People Think, that “Student loan debt is increasing because government grants and support for postsecondary education have failed to keep pace with increases in college costs”(Why 1). This means that the government no longer covers for college tuition fees. College graduates are 20% more likely to work at a job that is outside of their major by the debt they are in. Kantrowitz also mentions that “students who borrow to attend college, it appears that more than a quarter (27.2%) of them are graduating with excessive debt” (Why 1). In reality, leads to student saying that the financial cost was worthless, ending up with a job that is especially not what they went to school
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,
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 ...
The debt associated with higher education is one of the biggest factors of deterrence for most people who are interested in college, and it is not at all surprising. 71 % of college seniors who graduated last year had student loan debt, and the average debt for a college student with a four-year degree is $29,400.This number has gone up an average of 6 % each year. Keep in mind that this is just the average debt, and there are students who are in debt upwards of $30,000 dollars (projectonstudentdebt.org). Now in order to understand why the debt is so high it is best to break down the different costs of higher education. The first and most important of which is tuition.
Most people today accept the debt that comes from college. Students consider student loan debt as a “good debt.” They see other students make this mistake but follow their path anyway. Nearly 80% of college-bound students have not projected the total amount of money they will need to graduate college.
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
In the article, “Is student loan debt really stopping people from buying homes?”, written by Jillian Berman, she discusses how being more cautious going into the college life will definitely benefit the student, quoting another author, “Instead students should be mindful of the cost and the amount they’re borrowing when choosing a school” (Berman). Berman goes on to quote, “[…] no, you should not skip college” (Berman). Because skipping college is a nasty idea in the twenty first century and could potentially lead to debt, it is a good idea to think of the smarter options when choosing a college to attend. Many students choose a college based off of if it sounds good or if it’s far enough away from their parents, and this most definitely leads to more cost, especially if a student decides to attend an out-of-state school and does not have the money. Choosing smarter and cheaper paths are the easier way to go when thinking of college. Not everyone, however, will decide to choose the cheaper path, so there are other things that could possibly help the financial
When starting college every student must make a very important decision. Whether if they want to get financial aid or to pay the money up front. Having college debt will not only ruin their credit, but he or she may also have to pay off their tuition for the rest of their life. Research says, “According to the College Board, which tracks students’ financing of higher education, undergraduate students in 2013 through 2014 borrowed in the aggregate nearly $63 billion and received $33.7 billion in Pell grants.” By this quote from “Debt, Merit, and Equity in Higher Education Access” it clearly shows the effects College Debt has on their society, but also on their educational future. Every paycheck they receive, a small portion goes toward paying
Going to college and furthering someone’s future career is a very important part of life.. Making the choice of going to college or not going to college could affect someone for the rest of their life, If a student decides to go to college after high school they will be in debt for many years after they graduate college. “Over the past decade, tuition and fees have risen much faster than inflation and outpaced the cost of housing and health care” (Blumenstyk). Blumenstyk is showing how outrageous the cost of college tuition has become. Whether it is for a University or a Community college either one. Most people spend their whole lives being in debt just because of buying a house and now they will have the burden of paying off their college tuition as well. They may keep getting a bill in the mail that most of them will hate looking at, and also putting down that much money each month for their payment. While college does create the opportunity of increased pay and better jobs, it should not mean students are required to pay all the money they earn back the college. At that point people may as well not go to a
Those who think a college education is not worth it believe that college can become a setback in life due to the thousands of dollars that college students are spending on tuition and books. Students who attend college will not have the money to purchase a home, spend money on family, vacations, or any other costly items and bills. On the other hand, most college students end up paying for their college loans all of their life or go into debt. They will never have money to rely on since their credit cards will be racking up interest for college loans that need to be paid off. As stated by Paul Taylor in Michelle Adam’s report, the cost of a college education has been at a record level and the cost of tuition and fees has more than tripled which is causing a rise in student debt (58). With rising prices, the economy is making it more difficult for people to afford a college education.
When coming into terms with what a college degree means is simply a certification. In basic terms, a degree is simply a piece of paper certifying you met a certain level of scholastic achievement, but what happens in the class room doesn’t always translate into the real world. College degrees don’t always guarantee a good salary or guarantee a job. There are many high paying degrees, but for every high paying degree, there are two low paying degrees. There are also degrees that have a limited market. Simply having a college degree doesn’t guarantee one will get the job, nor should it. Employees need to bring skills to the table, as well as the ability to continue learning, growing, and providing value for their employer(s). I am not saying people who choose low paying degrees aren’t successful, not even. Many people choose degrees based on what makes them content,...