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Health & Fitness

Student Loans: What We Do With Our Debt and Why We May Have to Deal with It

With the UC system facing a financial beating, post-graduate debt may be our only option.

As St. Mary’s graduates anticipate their commencement ceremony this weekend, so too do many anticipate daunting debts from the student loans they took out to pay for the past four years of their lives. Some SMC students have confessed to be graduating with close to $85,000 in loan debts. When I think of how many months of rent I could pay with that kind of money I cringe.

Those St. Mary’s students’ cases are not rare, but rather exemplify the situations of most college students today. The Project on Student Debt says that 67% of four-year college graduates left school with debts from student loans in 2008. Most of these students had at least $20,000 in debt.

These kinds of payments make college feel almost unworthy of all the effort. Maintaining an impressive GPA in a top school is tough enough, and all the while we have the concept of post-graduate employment hanging over our heads like a dark cloud. The job application process is a bear, and once it leads to something concrete the whole idea of income generally ends up to be less lucrative than we hoped for. Add At least half a decade of salaries in debt and you’ll never find a graduate willing to enter the real world without a fight.

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So what are the solutions to save money? Some say go to a public, in-state university. According to a 2010 Senate report, on average “tuition at for-profit schools is nearly twice that of the in-state tuition at four-year public colleges, and more than five times the average tuition at community colleges.”

It is this economic factor that is lowering public school acceptance rates as more and more students seek relatively small tuitions, a goal that oftentimes (especially in California) is made pointless by later tuition hikes as a result of a battered economy.

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But think of this on a state-by-state basis. As appealing as in-state tuition sounds, we Californians cannot deny that our public university system is losing financial stability. As schools in the UC system cannot guarantee four-year graduation to all students, the idea of paying less than private school tuition begins to fade as the number of years it takes to finish up drags on tirelessly.

Other options don’t look too great for those looking for the biggest bang for their buck. Declaring bankruptcy is always available but never pleasing. Some say that making college free of tuition is the answer, but at this point students are so accustomed to the amenities that come with the undergraduate experience that a school without all of the standard bells and whistles – housing, dining, student activities, and the like – would have a tough time filling a classroom.

As much as I want to say that this bums me out and that it should change – it does, and it should – I feel that at some point we have to accept that debt is the consequence of a degree in the US. The people who choose to go to college do so for the specific reason that we want to better our lives through learning, and, when treated as such an opportunity, college is important enough that one likely would not waste his or her money on an education that doesn’t feel worthwhile. Put simply, people do not often – or at least should not – spend thousands of dollars on an education that doesn’t meet their expectations.

Of course I admit that this is the point of view of an idealist – you caught me. But maybe that is the best solution we can come across for student debts. It would be nice for student loan policies to make amendments regarding the height of their interest rates, and people are working on adding that pressure. But until the state government stops slashing UC budgets and the economy meets a full recovery, we may be in a bit of a rut. 

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