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The College Debt Crisis in the United States

Alena Britt

Arizona State University


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The College Debt Crisis in the United States

During my senior year of high school, I was completely unsure of what I was going to do

the following fall. All I knew was that I needed to go to college and get a degree to be

successful; I was doing what I had to do to fall within social norms. Growing up in Germany, I

often heard of the American Dream. I was always told that the harder I work the more

opportunities there will be in my future. So, I thought I would go experience the American

Dream for myself. Having had no family in any of the 50 states, I struggled to find a place to go;

thus, I started my exploration on collegeboard.org. I searched for schools with majors and

organizations I would be interested in. Being an out of state student, the cost of tuition and living

in the dorms all seemed the same; so, I stopped paying attention to the amount a college

education a college education would cost. Following the advise of those around me, I applied for

scholarship after scholarship, and even filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid

(FAFSA).

Later into my search, I decided to become an officer in the U.S. Air Force, which brought

me into researching Air Force Reserve Officer Training Course (AFROTC) and noticed that I

would be able to not only serve in the U.S. Air Force but participating in AFROTC would allow

me to compete for a full- ride scholarship, with monthly stipends of $300 that increase each year.

I would also have had the opportunity to further my education and get my degree paid for by the

Air Force while I was serving. This sounded like an amazing deal that I couldn't turn down, so I

decided to go for it.

When it came to making the decision of where I would attend college, I decided upon

going to Arizona State, on a $50,000 scholarship which I then thought would make a dent in my

college education costs, this was not the case. My mind was set on doing AFROTC, doing what I
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could to get a scholarship to pay for the remaining costs of school, and then serving, but life

doesn’t always go exactly the way you plan.

After leaving for college and being burdened with trying to figure out how I’m going to

pay for my education and having to take out loans of almost $20,000 to pay for one year of

college, I realized that there is a debt crisis throughout this country, and I am not the only one.

“Roughly 70 percent of grads leave college with student debt, and over 44 million Americans

hold a total of $1.4 trillion in student loan debt. For federal student loans, the standard repayment

plan expects borrowers to pay off their debt in less than 10 years. For many, however, it can take

twice as long” (Hess, 2017). Although these numbers may not seem dramatic, let me put student

debt into a different perspective. Throughout our lives, we take out loans for several reasons such

as: car, school, credit card, business, mortgage etc. Compared to these other debts and loans

many Americans have throughout their life, college debt ends up stacking up to be one of the

biggest loans many take out. College debt takes some of the longest time to pay off, simply to

earn a bachelor's degree and attempt to obtain the American Dream for themselves and their

families. Students are told that we are “investing in our future,” yet we can’t afford anything else

such as bills, family expenses, and vacations while we are making this “investment” and for

years following graduation or dropping out. Even if you fail to complete your degree, the debt

will follow you, making it even more difficult to pay for life necessities.

College costs are consistently increasing, making students struggle to pay for it every

single day; yet, knowing that a high school diploma isn't going to get you far in life anymore.

The new minimum standard has been raised to a bachelor's degree which will get you a decent

job while you're trying to pay off the thousands of dollars in debt that you have accumulated.

College debt has been shown to indirectly affect our future as graduates “are tens of thousands of
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dollars in debt, in jobs paying half what they expected to earn after college. They cannot buy a

home, start a business. They are even afraid to get married and have a kid” (Thompson, 2016).

Although I have only been going to college for a semester and a half, I can relate to this in every

way. The costs of daily life are always present and the struggle of trying to pay for groceries,

medical bills, phone bills, car insurance, gas, parking permits, school textbooks etc., racks up

quickly in a college student's life makes it even harder to afford anything else. According to a

study conducted by James Dubick, Brandon Matthews, and Clare Cady, Hunger on Campus: The

Challenge of Food Insecurity for College Students, students are struggling to even pay for a roof

over their heads and are going hungry due to the drastic costs of college, “one in five students

had the very lowest levels of food security. Thirteen percent were homeless” (Dubick, Matthews

& Cady, 2016).

So, why did the price of college costs go up in the first place:

...the price of public college has gone up principally because public support from states

has gone down. During the Great Recession [2008], state income and sales revenues

plummeted just as college enrollment increased...as state spending on college dropped,

price of public colleges increased, driving more low-income students into the arms of for-

profits. (Thompson, 2016)

With a state’s support decreasing, and the number of students consistently increasing due to the

new standard of a bachelor's degree, the cost of a college education is going to continue to

increase. Although, isn't it the states job to provide an affordable education to its residents?

“The Arizona Constitution specified that University instruction shall be as nearly free as

possible,” (Hoffman & Rex, 2006). The constitutional mandate only states that the tuition in

Arizona for resident students should not be “excessive or unreasonable,” yet there is no
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definition to this leaving the decision of what might be excessive up to the University board to

decide. Although the mandate defines that it is the states job to provide an affordable education

to resident students, “the declining public support is occurring despite increasing evidence that

investments in higher education yield quantifiable societal returns in addition to the widely

recognized private financial returns,” (Hoffman & Rex, 2006). The Arizona constitution

specially declares that it is the job of the University and the state to provide a “nearly free”

education to its students, yet students at state universities such as Arizona State, are still

struggling to pay for tuition.

Even though states support has decreased over the years, support from the government

has increased, which means more profit for the state and the schools. If these schools are looking

to make more and more profit regardless of the amount of work you put in to fund your

education, the American Dream no longer has the impact it promised.

According to Real College Debt Crisis: How Student Borrowing Threatens Financial

Well-Being and Erodes the American Dream, the cost has increased over the years:

Average total cost of college attendance and room and board at an in-state, public four-

year college for the 2012-13 school year was $8,655, an increase of 4.8 percent from the

prior school year and a continuation of trends of nearly uninterrupted cost increases over

the past several years. The average total cost of a private four-year college also rose by

4.2 percent in 2012-13 to $29,056. (Elliot & Lewis, 2015)

Although 4-5% doesn’t seem like a massive increase throughout the years, if the cost of college

is constantly increasing and more students attend college, more students will be engulfed by the

college debt crisis. The constant increase of college costs and students suffering from debt erodes

the image of the American Dream that we long for. While the American Dream encapsulates
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being able and working hard, you can work your ass off during school, get a 4.0, and be involved

in a ton of extracurricular activities, yet the looming debt that is accumulated through college is

going to limit your ability to work as hard as you wish. Especially, if you are a student coming

from a lower income family who did not grow up with the same ability as a student who is

coming from a high-income family.

These numbers give a good perspective on how drastic the college debt crisis is in the

United States. While in the U.S., 70% of grads leave with student debt, in many European

countries such as Germany, student leave with little to no college debt, allowing them to begin

their lives as an adult in the working world, and attain financial stability versus being burdened

with the massive amount of debt U.S. students are left with. Within the European countries,

education is entirely publicly funded allowing students to continue their education for little to no

cost. Other countries that also charge little to nothing for a higher education include Brazil,

Finland, France, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden (Value Colleges, 2018). While graduates in

these countries leave school with little to no student debt, US students are forced to apply for

student aid to fund their education such as federal loans, grants, work, scholarships etc. What

makes the U.S. so different from these other countries that have an almost completely free

education system that is the American Dream.

While many colleges in developed countries around the world are mostly publicly

funded, the U.S. has one of the highest college education costs (Brinded, 2015). These high

college costs are often backed up by the “American Dream” argument. The American Dream is

an ideal that has made its way throughout the U.S. culture since 1931:

The term American dream was popularized in James Truslow Adams 1931 book...dream

of working hard to build a better life a central driver in the history of our nation...fueled
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by the idea that if people put forth enough effort and have sufficient ability, they will be

able to obtain desired outcomes through normative behaviors such as attending college.

(Elliot &Lewis, 2015)

The equation of the American Dream where effort and ability will equal success, has a

significant effect on the idealism when it comes to students continuing their education and

entering the workforce. In the U.S., the ideal that if you work hard, and put the effort in you will

obtain success has been around for ages (Elliot & Lewis, 2015). This ideal is prominently seen

when it comes to the argument against lowering college tuition in the U.S.. Students are told that

they need to work to fund their education by applying for scholarships and grants, while students

who do not work hard to earn these scholarships and grants have the burden that student loans

bring.

This ideal of the American Dream emphasizes that “Americans favor individualism and

have a tendency toward diminishing the role that institution plays in who succeeds,” (Elliott &

Lewis, 2015). While the U.S. emphasizes individualism, countries that offer free college

education are more focused on collectivism and helping the community and their country. The

individualistic society shows why the American Dream is so prominent in our society. While

collectivist countries are more concerned with the well-being of their society, and more

concerned with giving people more opportunity, individualistic countries are focused on the hard

work you are putting in to reach your goals, which is the basis of the American dream. With this

ideal still being so prominent, it makes it harder to convince people that following the principles

of European countries in lowering college costs, or even making them free is a concept not many

people are willing to agree with. College cost is constantly rising rather than being lowered to

make it more affordable for students, and something needs to be done about it so future
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generations do not have to limit themselves to the opportunities they can seek and keep the

American Dream alive.

While this equation may work for many students with middle-class families, others who

grew up in a low-class family do not have the same advantage. The equation that effort and

ability will give you success, may work for most middle-class and upper-class people, but is

harder to obtain for those who do not have the same ability from the environment in which they

are not in debt and have financial stability going into higher education. This ideal affects the

attitude society has towards giving students “handouts” such as scholarships and grants to fund

their education since they “did not work hard enough for it.” Many students that come from low

income families, do not have the same ability as other students who are coming from higher

income families. Many of these students are trying to get an education while also supporting

their families at home, which sets these students back from achieving that dream as they are

often assisting their family versus being able to put the same effort as others into school and

extracurricular activities, which is often used to qualify students for scholarships and grants “the

person born into a debt- dependent family will have to expand additional effort to achieve

financial well-being, often long after the person born into a resource-rich family with similar

attributes does” (Elliott & Lewis 2015).

With college costs consistently increasing and the number of students going to college to

meet the social standard, the American Dream becomes decreasingly an image that can be

obtained for every student. If we became more focused on giving student more opportunity to

pursue their education and not have to worry about accumulating thousands of dollars in debt,

while still pushing students to work hard to obtain their degrees, more students would be willing

to get higher education, equaling in better jobs, harder working employees, and an overall better
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economy as more people would be entering the workforce. A lower college cost would also aid

students by giving them the freedom of not having to be afraid to get more education past a

bachelor's degree, start a family, buy a house, or even start a business.

The ideal of the American Dream is an argument that is very prominent in reasons as to

why college education costs should not be lowered in the U.S., but in the end this argument is

invalid as not everyone has the same ability. While this dream is diminishing, people still hold on

to this equation. If state or federal support would increase, lowering the cost of public college

education, the opportunity that people immigrate to the U.S. for and seek could once again

become an obtainable goal.


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References

Brinded, L (2015, Dec 28). The 11 most expensive countries for a university education. Business

Insider, Business Insider. Retrieved March 15, 2018 from

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Elliott, W, & Lewis, M. The real college debt crisis: how student borrowing threatens financial

well-being and erodes the American dream. Praeger, 2015.

Hess, A. (2017, July 03). This is the age most Americans pay off their student loans. CNBC.

Retrieved March 15, 2018 from https://www.cnbc.com/

Thompson, D. (2016, July 19). The scariest student loan number. The Atlantic. Retrieved March

15, 2018 from https://www.theatlantic.com/

Value Colleges (2016, Nov 1). College access and affordability: USA vs. the world. Retrieved

March 15, 2018 from www.valuecolleges.com/collegecosts/.

Dubick, J., Matthews, M. & Cady, C. (2016, Oct). Hunger on campus: the challenge of food

insecurity for college students. Retrieved May 1, 2018 from

https://studentsagainsthunger.org/

Hoffman, D. & Rex, T. (2006, Feb). Tuition, appropriations and constitutional mandates in

Arizona: a report from the office of the university economist. W.P. Carey School of

Business, Arizona State University. Retrieved May 1, 2018 from

https://repository.asu.edu/

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