Graduation should be a celebratory event where students can reflect and enjoy the fruits of their labor after working to achieve a lifelong accomplishment, earning a college degree. But for many college graduates, that graduation party is short-lived as the crushing reality remains; students are thousands of dollars in debt to a government that continues to cut higher education funding.
This system plagues people after graduation, knowing that a large sum of your first check is gone before you know it. Students are at a disadvantage from the beginning. Tuition is at an all time high, so students have to work during school and take full courses and pass them to obtain their degree.
According to ticas.org, the average debt for graduates at the University of West Georgia is over $27 thousand. There were almost 1700 students earned a bachelor’s degree in 2014, and three-fourths of those students had college debt. That is over 1200 students entering the real life already in debt without secure jobs. Students coming from low-income backgrounds are forced to take out loans just to make ends meet.
These numbers are staggering, and it seems as if they will continue to skyrocket as colleges continue to ignore issues that higher education present. Because of this trend, a training session on student loans should be offered every semester for students contemplating students loans or those already with loans. Most students do not recognize how difficult life will be post-graduate when you are debt right out of school.
College debt could cause students to settle for underpaying jobs that they are overqualified for because of the pressure of repaying loans. This postpones any hope for former students to advance themselves and pursue jobs in their field. Students are given a six month grace period, but this is problematic for students who may not have jobs instantly after graduation. At best, students can use the grace period to get ahead and start the repaying process. But other expenses conflict with that idea.
The only thing that can change this trend is the priorities of those in authority. Students should do a better job in educating themselves about student loans from the government and trying to minimize their borrowing. Every precaution should be exercised to avoid falling into deeper debt. But the government and college institutions must rectify how they allocate funds. The government has not decided to prioritize education, which will be detrimental for the country’s economy in the future. Either way, loan debt disrupts the trajectory for graduates and government and institutions have yet to address it.
