Student Loans in a Debt-Ridden Country

By Carrie Williams:

Student loans have been a major problem for students seeking higher education in the United States of America. They are promised better-paying jobs, given that they graduate with a degree. However, in the current economy, there aren’t as many jobs as we’d like to believe. A university or college degree is supposed to make someone better prepared for the workforce. But, many college graduates are stuck jobless because of a struggling economy that has trillions of dollars in debt from war.

Obama created a new policy that is supposed to go into effect this year where the 15% interest rate is decreased to 10%. What happens is that after thousands of dollars of student loans pile up for each hard-working student per year, they can’t find a job once they graduate. I, too, have not found a paying job after school. The solution to the problem of student loans is to make more jobs available to college graduates. The other option is to get scholarships, rather than apply for loans. Then they don’t need to be paid off. Rather the student earns the gift of money before they start school and don’t have to worry about it later and can just focus on their career. Instead, when they take loans, they have to wait up to 10 years before the debts are fully paid off.

Students take jobs that are unrelated to their degrees just so they can start to pay off the loans. In the end, people end up with debts they can’t pay off. Last year, Congress passed a law that switched federal loans to private loans. Instead of using a middle-man such as a bank to distribute the loans, they are directly given to students. One of the congress members claimed that the project made a poorer quality of customer service. So, instead of there being private lenders, the government directly insured the loans. This way, the government can give out more loans since they no longer have to pay the middle men. However, students are still unable to pay the loans.

One of the most popular student loan websites is FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Several of my friends in college used this service to apply for their loans. They took jobs they don’t enjoy just to start paying off loans. It takes time and persistence for students to get the jobs they really want. Networking and socializing to find an appropriate job for one’s experiences is the goal of most young people. They want to find a job that fits their personality. The loans they worked up to get proper qualifications however have caused a problem where paying off debts is more important than the career path itself. That is a paradox in itself. Jobs are created for the sake of creating jobs, but they should have a purpose and an overall meaning for the economy and the community.