Carlos Eusebio, Taylor Abernathy, Denver Blinn.
In 2018, student loan debt still has a grip on college graduates. For the past decade student loan debt has risen to $1.4 trillion dollars, reported by the Washington Post. This has past the credit card mark. When high school kids head into college they do not understand the concept of student loan debt. They believe that they will leave college with a full-time job and be able to pay off their student loan debt quickly. This is rarely ever the case for students because their payments are needed to be made for ten plus years.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the average student now leaves with over $35,000 in student loans. That calculated out is a $300-dollar payment every month for ten years. This is very tough to be able to keep this payment up for that period. There are programs that can “manage” student loan debt, but that isn’t that case. There is often too much debt for it to be managed and payable for the regular person. The loan forgiveness program says that if you make all your student loan debt payments for a certain amount of years that the rest is not needed to be payed. People think that will pay it, but don’t understand life will happen and could be late for a payment. Once they’re late for one payment their loans need to be payed in full.
Having college becoming free in the U.S. is probably unrealistic, but states like New York offer the Excelsior scholarship which gives students of low income families a chance to go to school. I think there are lots of possible solutions to make this more affordable for students. Students should be able to refinance their debt to find the lowest interest rate. Homeowners can
refinance, but students aren’t able to. When a homeowners morgage is across 15 years, but student’s loans can be just as long. I think loan forgiveness programs are good but, they need to have more leeway with them. Missing just one payment can set you up with paying for more than you really want.
As a society we need to take a stand to student loans. We need to take time out of our days to write to our government agencies who offer financial aid and suggest cheaper ways for student loans. I think that if we all ask for a solution that it could be a realistic possibility for it to happen. Also, writing our banks to lowers interest rates for payments to be easier to pay off. It is time that we are not controlled by student loan debt.