Student Debt Essay

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Student Loans: The Cost of a College Degree A college degree can feel like the key that opens the door to opportunities and financial security that will ensure a lifestyle of comfort. Affluent and successful parents have long pushed the doctrine of a college education and how to use it to your advantage. It is the norm and not usually questioned in these families. It is ubiquitous with success and privilege. Low income families see it as a way out. A way to make a better life for themselves. To obtain what the generation before them did not. No matter what kind of household you grew up in, be it wealthy, modest or the poorest of the poor, our society has long viewed a college degree as something prudent, respectable, and an investment in your future. How then have we as a nation gone from championing this American dream to seeing our college graduates garnering student debt amounts that can hinder that very dream? We need to consider the motivations behind borrowing and lending, rising tuition costs and the inability to repay these …show more content…

The student is investing in their future with hopes of a well paying job after graduation. This is the main motivation behind students who receive loans, whether they are Federal student loans or private loans. Students are seeking to improve their socioeconomic status and are therefore willing to go into debt with the hope of repaying it once they attain a job in their chosen career field. Research from Jennifer Cheeseman Day and Eric C. Newburger for the U.S. Census Bureau shows, “that over an adult's working life, high school graduates can expect, on average, to earn $1.2 million; those with a bachelor's degree, $2.1 million; and people with a master's degree, $2.5 million (4). Statistics like these, along with a passion for a particular career field, drive students to college campuses and furthermore to the banks to finance their

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