The American dream is what typically immigrants came to the United States to accomplish. An American dream can have different definitions to people. That dream could either be to make a better life for their child, or to even make a better life for oneself. Regardless of what type of dream it is there is one commonality. That commonality is the fact that in order to accomplish the American dream there is a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and a lot of tears. The American dream is not pretty at first. I know this for a fact because I myself am an immigrant. An immigrant who came at the age of 7 years old left everything she knew in order to accomplish the American dream of education. My parents moved to American because of education. I am not writing this article for you to feel bad for me, I am writing this because this a reality that America is currently facing and that is college student debt.
Currently in this modern world in order for a person to not struggle as much, a college degree is needed. A college degree in which costs so much money, that when a student graduates they owe. They either owe money to the federal government from parent plus loans or student loans. Or they either owe money to a bank from taking private loans. Some people might debate that kids should go to a community college if they can not afford a state college. But I argue with this statement for two reasons. One I am not sure if community college gives you the same quality of education or the sources for ALL types of majors. Especially STEM majors. The second is why should a kid minimize their dreams of going away to school due to economical struggles? Kids who come from wealth should not just get the opportunity to go away for school, but so should poor kids.
The other debate someone might bring to the table is that a kid should apply for scholarships. But let me tell you something looking and searching for scholarships online is not easy. The first problem from searching for scholarships is that a websites take you to multiple websites look for scholarships which takes time up. Even when I graduated from high school with a 3.32 and multiple activities did not get scholarship money. Sadly doing 9 years of martial arts I did not get any type of scholarship for that. Lets also bring up the topic about counselors and advisers in schools, it seems that students mostly (not all) but could agree that they are not very helpful with the process at all. The only thing that helped was financial aid. FAFSA gave me a lot of money out of state. A lot of money but not enough. My father is a single parent taking care of two children. The remaining amount that financial aid do not cover meant that student and parent plus loans needed to be taken out.
The point that I am trying to make is I am not the only one in DEBT. This country is about $1.6 trillion dollars in college student debt. Why do we the next generation have to go into debt in order to learn and get an education? Like I said the American dream is a lot of work and sacrifice, but when it comes to education at what cost? There are some generous celebrities out there who help out once in a while. But the real people who should be helping with this issue is congress. Congress should make it a concern because $1.6 trillion dollars in debt is not good for the economy. But most importantly its affecting the people, the lives of the next generation.
