Is the Student Debt Crisis self-caused?

Please let me preface my argument by saying I did not write this with the intention of putting down fellow students or to boast about my own decisions. My decisions about college as a whole were not perfect, I don’t believe that I have any right to discourage anyone from pursuing higher education. I wish my peers the very best after high school and am extremely excited to see the great things they will accomplish in the near future.

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The student debt crisis is one of the most discussed political/economical issues within students my age, i.e. late highschool or college aged kids. Many factors are often blamed for the crisis, from high costs of attending, improper government aid and corporate greed. Whilst I fully acknowledge that these factors can be used to form very solid arguments around the issue, I believe there is a blame-leak within the conversation. Two main factors that are well within students’ control are overlooked. Specifically, a refusal to compromise on what university to attend and the active choice of majoring in a field that may not be best suited for employment. I place immense value on education and encourage all who find it appropriate to pursue it, but as students, and more importantly, responsible adolescents, we should be making better decisions in relation to not finding ourselves in immense debt after graduating college.

The most significant culprit that is causing the student debt crisis is society actively romanticizing higher education. Books, movies, songs and other forms of media have pushed forth the statement that “college is the best 4 years of your life!” or “College is so much more fun than high school or working”. Whilst I agree that college sounds tremendously fun and I have heard amazing things from older peers who are either in college or have graduated, I believe this sentiment may be causing more harm than good. High School students look forward to their college adventure the moment they make the decision that they want to go to college. Our culture that emphasizes how amusing college is leads students to believe they must not compromise on their decisions in relation to higher education. It’s the same line of logic people follow when choosing to spend unhealthy amounts of money on a wedding, “it’s the best day of my life, it has to be perfect and I will not compromise on it!”. Using the same path of financial destruction students argue that “It’s the best 4 years of my life, it has to be perfect and I will not compromise on it!”. Because of this atmosphere, students will decide to go out-of-state for college, choose private universities over public ones, attend a university in spite of it not offering their choice of major and not be willing to commute. Though these factors are not the end-all-be-all for college decisions, they are often completely disregarded for the decisions made by students. I have just graduated from a small town highschool that is a fairly close distance to UConn, approximately a 15 minute drive. I am attending UConn and so is a good chunk of my graduating class, however an unusually high number of them are choosing to live on campus. I love the idea of living on campus, the spontaneousness and core involvement being on campus is tempting but since my household can only comfortably pay for tuition, and I would not like to graduate with debt, I am choosing to commute to and from school, and so are a few of my peers. However, a worrying amount of students are choosing to live on campus for the inviting reasons I mentioned previously, most of them choosing to go into much further debt than they need to. It is not my position to comment on how one should spend their money or how one should approach their education, but I would like to acknowledge the fact that a sizable group of students I personally know are choosing to live on campus and are willing to go into debt for it. The refusal to compromise on the idea of living on campus is causing many of my peers to go into, approximately, an extra $50,000 of debt. Living on campus is a smaller decision in relation to college, I am only vocal about it since I have seen hands-on examples. However, the decision to go out of state is also a major reason for worsening student debt. College is the opportunity for many students to live out their adventurous dreams and move away. However, moving far away for college is not cheap. Students who get into UConn are going to more expensive schools with worse average GPAs, SAT scores, acceptance rates, starting salaries, network opportunities and more. Sure, you cannot sum up a school with a few numbers but students are deciding to go to ‘inferior’ schools simply because they are out of state and far away from home. These students will have to pay not only for room and board, but for out of state tuition. To tally up the numbers I would like to compare the costs of commuting to UConn versus our neighbors at UMass, these figures are both before financial aid since that can hugely vary the bottom line. To commute to UConn, i.e. only paying instate, it cost about $18,000. However, to go to UMass, i.e. pay out-of-state and room and board comes out to about $51,000. The difference of $33,000 totals to $132,000 over 4 years. I am not bringing up these figures to discredit UMass, I am bringing them up to staple digits to the facts. Students are willing to go to a school that costs over $100,000 extra than an out of state school simply because it is out of state. UConn is too close to home for many and thus they chose UMass, UNH, URI or many other out-of-state universities. But by doing so, they contract themselves to much more debt than necessary because of a refusal to compromise on college. I support all of my peer’s and their decisions relating to approaching life after highschool but there is a destructive refusal to compromise within my generation. Lastly, I do not write this to pay my own back and label myself as more mature; I intend to simply shed light on the current state of high school seniors and rising college freshmen from the inside out.

Another reason for rising student debt is an unhealthy and blind education to “Pursue what you want!” and “Major in what your heart desires!”. I am once again going to take a step back and explain myself before I make a controversial claim. I fully believe you should have a genuine interest in your major and the line of work you plan on joining. However, it is crucial to understand that for the vast majority of students, college is a way to increase your income potential. If you have to go into $60,000 of debt but come out of school making a proper salary, it's fairly responsible to take out a loan. Unfortunately, this sentiment blurs the connection between the costs of attending college and the expected reward; a worrying amount of kids do not care about the R in ROI. Students tend to undervalue the importance of what happens after graduation, instead the delusionally positive support causes them to pick a major that may not be best suited to equip them for healthy compensation. Certain majors which offer very low rates of employment, poor starting salaries, lack of career path choices and upwards mobility are often being picked by incoming freshmen. Often kids are choosing degrees with the intention of not using them for employment. To be clear, I am not discouraging anyone from pursuing education, nor is it my place to criticize someone for their choice of major. I want to simply point out that students who are going into debt for degrees often do so with the intention of not using the said degree as a tool for employment; it is very difficult to pay off debt if you struggle to get hired. Encouraging students is important but suggesting they blindly head into a degree that they cannot even use to get hired is destructive.

The student debt crisis is a very serious issue and one that I hope is solved within my lifetime. There are factors that us students can’t control, but we need to be held accountable and make better decisions to help fight the crisis. The willingness to take an objective look at the costs of different universities as well as choosing majors that will assist us in paying off debts after school. The lack of student responsibility is a major part of the equation that should not be overlooked if one hopes to attend school without unmanageable debt.

Arch Joshi

Sources:

https://admissions.uconn.edu/cost-aid/tuition/

https://www.umass.edu/financialaid/undergraduate/undergraduate-costs

https://uconn.edu/content/uploads/2021/01/INS-008-Fact-Sheet-010621-FY21.pdf