The Student Loan Explosion
The price of a quality education keeps rising, and unfortunately, the amount of funding public colleges receive has not risen along with it. In fact, some colleges have had to raise tuition because they simply aren’t getting as much support from the state or federal government as they used to. In other cases, schools are spending a lot of money on fancy new football stadiums and student centers with movie theaters. Schools will argue that these perks are necessary to attract new students, but whether or not that’s true, the students who go there will be paying for it with fees and other expenses. Then there’s the ridiculous price of textbooks. It’s no wonder that the amount of student loan debt in America has exceed one trillion dollars. Millions of those borrowers are in default as well, and in some cases, it’s not really their fault, or at least not entirely. That means any person who is considering either returning to school or attending college for the first time needs to ask him or herself a lot of questions before signing a loan agreement.
What will you study?
In an ideal world, every student would be able to find a job that aligned with their passions. If you wanted to study history, you would be able to take that history degree and find a great job at a museum or historical society. In the world we live in, that’s not really the case. A person with a bachelor’s degree in computer science who knows how to code will make more right out of college than a person with a master’s degree in English probably ever will. We value math and science more than the humanities, even though liberal arts majors are often good writers and good thinkers, both of which are quite useful in today’s job market. Still, it’s a good idea to be ruthlessly practical before you agree to take out $50,000 for a degree in art history. Could you get a double major in something else? Could you take your first year or two of classes at a community college before switching to a four-year university? Even if you decide not to change anything, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. So many 18-year-olds sign a piece of paper and then don’t realize just how hard it’s going to be to repay all that money plus interest.
Where will you study?
Be wary of online diploma mills that charge students a lot and give them very little in return. There are certain online schools that, if listed on a resume, will set off red flags for job recruiters. If you’re interested in online distance education programs, make sure the college has the right credentials and a good history of helping students, rather than just taking their money. An online global studies degree from a place like Linfield College is going to look better on job applications than an online global studies degree from Scammyville University. Good colleges will provide you with as much information as possible about what they do and how it will help students. Be wary of schools that make outrageous promises that they can’t keep. Paying off loans isn’t fun in the best of circumstances; a bad degree from a low-quality school can make the process even more miserable, especially since industry lobbyists have made discharging student loans in bankruptcy virtually impossible.