Education is great, but I do not want to give up an arm and leg. As a young adult, I can safely say that most college students value their education. Frank Newport and Brandon Busteed put on a study with Gallup that concluded that seven out of 10 American adults believe that a college education is important especially in the increasingly academic-intensive world we live in. With a valuable education comes a pricey cost: Debt.
With the up-coming elections, young adults want a president that will ensure a plan to lower the price tag of a higher education or better yet, make it free. Bernie Sanders sets a good example of a candidate that college students would desire because of his College for All Act plan that entails providing states with $47 billion per year that goes toward lowering the tuition and fees at public colleges and universities. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt in the US goes from $902 billion to $1 trillion. This proves that yes, students value education, but are paying off their loans for the rest of their lives.
According to an article on the Inside Higher Ed website, 80 percent of survey participants said that a college degree was important for their desired career, but 67 percent of them said they worried about paying for college and the debt they will incur. Debt causes a barrier for many students wanting to attain a higher education. This barrier is even bigger for students of low-income to middle class households. According to a college enrollment study on Pew Research, Hispanic and black students are enrolling in college, but only a small number of them get past an Associate’s degree. Why don’t they further their education? Debt is one of the main factors that contribute to the disparity because most of those students come from low-income households.
One ASA survey called Life Delayed showed that over half of college students felt that their student loan debt will cause them to delay their lives and hamper with their desired careers in the future. Even if students go past an Associate’s degree, their student debt will keep them from taking a job that they spent several years preparing for.
Critics may conclude that scholarships are available to all college students. I agree, but most scholarships would only cover a small amount of a student’s education. On top of that, the scholarship process is extensive and requires resources that may not be available to low-income and/or minority students. There are scholarships that provide significant amounts of money, like the Gates Millennium Scholarship, but are highly competitive among students. It may also be said that lowering the cost of college will increase taxes, which could be detrimental to low-income households. My argument would be that our nation should be willing to invest in education for students because they will be the future doctors, congressmen, factory-workers, technicians, etc. Bettering our nation requires a cost and if that means increasing taxes then so be it. In the long run, having a well-educated generation will be far more beneficial to our country.
