Student loans pile up. They pile up quickly and everyone competes for the same precious few scholarships. For many, this means student loans. Student loans mean debt and now more than ever college students graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, or a little more that 29 thousand dollars on average for a degree from a public university according to projectionstudentdebt.org.
The cost of college is increasing and the value of a bachelor’s degree is decreasing. Bachelor’s is the new diploma and master’s is the new bachelor’s. Now more than ever is the time to go to school, stay in school and hopefully come up with a way to pay for it.
Student loans and the cost of education bring in the debate over the dollar value of higher education. Socialist countries, such as Germany, have free or low cost education. America has many great schools but if the student loan crisis has shown anything it’s that not everyone can afford tuition. Our higher education system may be the envy of the world but is it worth going into debt for and if so what should the price tag of a quality education be?
What really grinds our gears are for profit schools such the University of Phoenix and Corinthian Colleges, the former owner of WyoTech. These schools put students thousands of dollars in debt without a credible degree. The average student attending a for profit university graduates with almost 40 grand in debt, according to the Institute of College Access and Success. A degree from a for profit school is 22 percent less likely to receive a call back for a job than someone from a traditional non-profit school. A study published by the American Institutes for Research in August 2014 found that these degrees received callbacks at the same levels as degrees from community colleges. Clearly these degrees are far from the gateway to the better life promised in the ads. Is it fair to make students pay for the American dream only to find out they were better off keeping their day job?
We are fortunate at UW to attend a relatively inexpensive school but even here we are not without our fair share of student debt. Times have changed from the bursting economy of our parent’s generation to the market crash of 2008. With student debt and increased competition for jobs, our generation is set behind in terms of finding a stable well-paying job, saving for a house or family. Student debt will plague our generation if no action is taken. We all want degrees. We all want them to mean something. We all want a job that will pay for a car, house and family but with the national student loan crisis that carrot is harder and harder to reach.
Now is the time to examine the value of your degree. Keep economics in mind when it comes to the November elections and vote for candidates that will help elevate the high cost of higher education. Do not let student loans be the Waterloo of our generation.
