The Aftershocks of Student Debt
Some figures before I get to the point:
In 1976, tuition and fees put you back by a little over $900. In 2002, the figure stood at over $6,000 — that is nearly six times the original figure in less than 30 years. At private universities, the average jumped from $3,051 to $22,686. Other expenses such as room and board have gone up from an average of $2,275 in 1976 to $12,111 in 2002. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious what I’m driving at — if you feel weighed down by a huge debt burden, if your parents had to take a huge home equity loan to finance your education — you only have these huge figures to blame. Education has become big business today and there is no room for people who cannot pay. I’m sure paying for college definitely forms part of the accelerating indebtedness of average American families.
But the worst part about this indebtedness is that students cannot pursue careers of their choosing — they are forced to take up jobs in fields that would enable them to repay their debt faster. This piece on the burgeoning student debt and its ramifications is an eye-opener and I think anybody who is interested in finding a solution to this problem should read it. Alternet.org reports:
Many bemoan the fact that the liberal arts have faded as undergraduate majors, while business majors have nearly tripled, from about 8 percent before the Second World War to 22 percent now. This is not because students no longer care about poetry or philosophy. Rather, they have learned the lesson of the world in front of them and chosen according to its, and their, constraints.
Read more: Another Way Out Of College Debt
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