Young adults today have a more difficult time than those of the ’80s and ’90s. Nowadays, inflation and high costs of living have made it more difficult than ever to make ends meet. To add to this, young adults pursuing a four-year college degree are faced with unprecedented education costs.
The life of a college student is already filled with a variety of challenges, from classwork and exams, stress, leaving home, adapting to a new environment and balancing time. But now, the most prevalent challenge in the lives of many college students is paying the debt that comes with pursuing a degree.
Higher education has become a business — tuition is at an all-time high, student loans are met with increasing interest rates, and the cost of books has skyrocketed to more than $150 per class. In recent years, the cost of attending a university has drastically increased, even reaching close to $80,000 per year at some private institutions, and this has led to a drastic increase in the need for student loans.
To combat debt, students are told to apply for scholarships and financial aid. However, financial assistance such as FAFSA is not fairly distributed, and many people are still forced to take out loans. Based on the calculation system from FAFSA, if the parents of a student earn more than $75,000 in gross annual income, they receive substantially less aid than those below the marker. This may seem fair, but in practice, students who are in the designated “middle class” struggle the most to attend four-year institutions.
FAFSA does not take into account the cost of living, rather they make an estimate of expected family contributions based on their gross annual income. Cost of living is an important aspect of income, as the cost-of-living expenses vary greatly depending on what state and city you live in.
For example, a San Francisco resident with a child who earns $77,000 per year will not be living comfortably due to the extremely high cost of living in the city. When this child starts college, they will receive less financial aid than another child whose parents make $60,000 but live in a more rural location with substantially lower costs. As a result, the students living in San Francisco stress over their high cost of living and the cost of attending college with less aid.
The middle-class student seeking higher education is stuck in the proverbial “middle” — not wealthy enough to afford college outright, and not poor enough to receive substantial government aid. This leaves them with no choice but to assume large amounts of debt from high-interest loans and be forced to work, which takes away their time to study and enjoy college life.
Colleges offer a variety of scholarships to their students, but they can be extremely competitive and often require an extensive application process, though this may vary given the scholarship amount. Students are constantly submitting scholarship applications and essays all while the colleges make billions of dollars in profit from student tuition and student loan interest. These scholarships can be subjective in their selection process and only award a small percentage.
The burden of student loans exerts significant financial pressure, takes a toll on one’s emotional well-being, and carries enduring consequences that greatly affect a student’s future. This pressing issue demands both attention and effective solutions because the impacts of overwhelming student debt extend well beyond the individual. Tackling the challenges associated with college debt is not just a matter of financial necessity but also our moral and societal imperatives.
College used to be about the students, but now it’s about profit. The means to combat the big business of a four-year college have not increased at a commensurate rate. Working wages are not high enough and scholarships are biased in their selection process. It’s time for colleges to stop gouging their students and provide higher education at an affordable rate. Let us stop prioritizing profit over people and make college more affordable for all those who wish to attend.
