The Growing Crisis of Student Debt

Throughout the past few decades, the amount of student debt in America has totaled to a mountainous value of $1.6 trillion. For many people, that amount of money is hard to even imagine. The student loan system was created for the purpose of allowing students to take out loans to assist in paying for college fees. However, it has been seen throughout the past few decades that although students are able to pay the fees of college, many end up owing money for the next 10 years of their lives. This results in college graduates struggling to find homes, becoming financially unstable, and having a weak state of mental health for years past their college life.

There are many statistics available to support the fact that the impact of student debt has grown to be tremendous and is predicted to get worse. Daniel Johnson, an associate of the Harvard Business Review, has found that the student loan debt has come to exceed accumulated car loans and credit card debt. Both car loans and credit card debt are issues that America has faced for a while now. Their impact is worrisome to the point where solutions have been debated over by professionals and government officials. The negative economic effects have concerned many U.S. citizens and now, student debt has exceeded the two. It has also been found that student loan debt is predicted to accumulate to $2 trillion by 2021 at a rate of 7% a year. Not only is it already a big issue, but it is also going to get worse if it is not taken care of soon. Caitlin Zaloom is another figure that has been concerned by this issue. Zaloom wrote a book describing the struggles of the middle class when it comes to student loans. In it, she discusses that it has grown to be so detrimental, and yet many students stay unaware of their future problems until it is too late. Although some may be quick to ignore it, student debt has become a large crisis and there are many reasons why.

Many unnecessary factors have forced the college tuition to increase so drastically over the years, causing students to take out larger loans. For example, there are some fees that have been added to the cost. These mandatory fees are used for a variety of activities and services. Fees to pay for administrative staff, recreational facilities, and many more services that students have never requested, end up taking a significant portion of their fees. Although it is ultimately beneficial for students to have these services, it should be up to the students and their parents whether they need them and are willing to pay extra to be provided with them. Elissa Nadworny, an interviewer for NPR, found that the state legislatures have consistently defunded public education systems. Johnson also recognizes this and states that state funding and subsidies were decreased by over $7 billion in a decade. Even while on this trajectory to grow more severe, state legislatures do not provide enough aid in the growing college fees, causing them to grow even higher. This could eventually lead to a depleting economy with high rates of unemployment, homelessness, and suicide.

The student loan system tends to have harmful psychological effects on different demographic groups and their families as well. Studies show that many students who struggle to pay off their debt also start to experience serious mental health issues. The stress of having to constantly worry about their debt ends up taking over their worries and many begin to have problems with anxiety and depression. More specifically, there are different issues varying between students with certain situations. The FAFSA fails to consider the different situations of students and continues to use a “nuclear family” template to outline what a family applying for a student loan should look like. This will give off the idea to students, whose families do not fit this template, that there is an issue with their family. Not only does the student loan system fail to recognize varying family structures, it also fails to assist varying demographic groups. Nadworny points out that women and people of color often graduate with more debt and have to pay it off for longer than their white male peers. With women and people of color graduating with larger and longer-lasting debt, they are more susceptible to the harmful psychological effects that come with it.

There have been multiple solutions presented to deal with this issue, and the one that is the most realistic and helpful will depend on the eye of the beholder. However, it will be most beneficial to acknowledge that this is an urgent issue that must be solved. Most American students dream of going to college to get a higher education that will help them reach their aspirations. As a result, families often have to start thinking about paying college tuition from early on in their childrens’ lives. This long process is often draining and worrisome from start to end. The student loan system was created for the purpose of helping students afford college and eventually reach their dreams, but it ends up having the opposite effect, limiting their ability to provide for themselves as adults.

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Works Cited

Johnson, Daniel M. “What Will It Take to Solve the Student Loan Crisis?” Harvard Business Review, 23 Sept. 2019, hbr.org/2019/09/what-will-it-take-to-solve-the-student-loan-crisis.

Nadworny, Elissa. “Families, Not Just Students, Feel The Weight Of The Student Loan Crisis.” NPR, NPR, 4 Sept. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/09/04/755221033/families-not-just-students-feel-the-weight-of-the-student-loan-crisis.

Zaloom, Caitlin. “How the Student Debt Complex Is Crushing the Middle Class.” Time, Time, 29 Oct. 2019, time.com/5712504/student-debt-complex-harms-america/.