Niah Sample
ENG211C
11/20/17
Prof. Bangert
The Solution to Excessive Student Loan Debt
Many upcoming college students and parents cannot afford to pay their tuition out of pocket and have to turn to loans. According to Business Insider, “The average annual increase in college tuition from 1980-2014 grew by nearly 260%” (Jackson, 2015). The student loan crisis has hit its peak of 1.3 trillion dollars in debt. According to the College Board the average college price for the 2016-2017 school year for a public college was $24,610 and a private college averaged at around $49,320 (Abella, 2016). Many students are constantly under pressure to figure out how they will pay for college before even deciding to attend. After they attend college they are faced with the burden of large amounts of loan debt that they will have to start paying back only just a few months after graduation. Although debt cannot be completely avoided for everyone there are certain decisions you can make to avoid the over excessive amounts of loan debt after graduation from college. Students that are interested in going to Old Dominion University should go to a local community college first because it will save them from the negative effects excessive student loan debt has on the student after graduation.
There are many great advantages to going to community college for two years before attending a four-year college. Such as the significantly cheaper tuition rates than what universities have to offer, being able to live at home and save on housing and also later class times and flexible schedules which makes it easier to work while attending school (Abella 2016). Also, when you attend college whether it be community or a university you never can be too sure of how you will adjust or you may suddenly decide college isn't for you anymore. Community colleges tend to be smaller than universities and therefore can be able to support and tend to you more than larger universities can. Maturity plays a huge role in college and if you aren’t quite mature yet or need that extra support to succeed community college can be helpful. If you attend a university and fail your first year or decide that you do not want to attend college anymore for whatever reason you still have to pay all of your tuition for that year in full to the school and if you took out a loan you have to pay them back as well regardless of the situation. Community college is a great starting point and transition from high school to college. If you decide you do not want to further your education and went to a community college you won’t be wasting as much money as you would have if you paid $20,000+ at a university.
Old Dominion University has recently approved a 3.1% increase in tuition for the 2017-2018 school year (Vera 2017). The current cost per credit hour for in state tuition at Old Dominion University (ODU) is $335. The out of state cost nearly triples with a rate of $930 per credit hour. To be considered full time at Old Dominion you have to take a minimum of twelve credit hours and this will equal $4,020 alone in tuition not including room and board, textbooks, or other fees. If you are considering furthering your education and going to graduate school at Old Dominion the instate tuition will cost you $496 per credit hour and out of state tuition is $1,249 per credit hour. Tidewater Community College (TCC) offers undergraduate in state tuition for $143.75 per credit hour and for out of state tuition $320.35. TCC’s out of state tuition is still cheaper than Old Dominion’s in state tuition. Fees are significantly lower at TCC than ODU as well. TCC’s student technology fee is $8.50 compared to ODU’s technology fee which is over thirty-six more times that making it $300. Compared to TCC these tuition rates are extremely high and are only going to keep rising.
I decided to interview Alena C. who is currently a junior at Old Dominion University and is majoring in communications. My first question for her was how much she receives in grants and financial aid and if it was enough to cover her full tuition for the year. Her response was “It is nowhere near enough I only receive a Pell Grant of $1,800 a semester, a Commonwealth Grant of $800 a semester and a financial aid grant of $1,000 a semester.” She had to take out $10,500 in loans just for her junior year itself. Alena expressed her concerns about the loans she had to take out, “Now that I am a junior I didn’t realize how much it would add up, the grant money I receive isn’t even enough to cover half of my tuition. My dad is a single parent of three other college students so he wasn’t able to help all of us out of pocket unfortunately.” Her sister attended Northern Virginia Community College before transferring over to Old Dominion University. Alena expressed her regrets of not doing the same, “My sister is a senior and her loan debt is significantly lower than mine, I wish I would’ve went to community college first as well than transferred to save myself from so much debt.” Alena didn’t do well her freshman year and ended up having to take credits over which caused more unexpected debt. My last question for her was what advice would she give to upcoming college students. She answered “I would encourage them to highly consider going to community college because it is the same if not a better education than you would get at a four year university that could end up costing you twenty years or more to pay back.”
A higher education is supposed to be beneficial to your future and when a student is getting ready to graduate from such a huge accomplishment worrying about how they are going to pay their high loans off should not have such a major burden as it does now. No one should have to worry about holding off on starting a family, starting a business, or buying a home due to student debt. A study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York revealed that “fewer 30-year-olds in general have bought homes since the recession, but the decline has been steeper for people with a history of student loan debt and has continued even as the housing market has recovered” (Korrki 2014). There are a few student loan services that allow students to defer their loan payments until six months after graduation. This means when you graduate you will not have to start making payments on your loans for up to six months. Many college graduates do not even have their first serious job within that time frame so being left with figuring out how you are going to pay these loans with no job can be a huge financial and psychological burden. According to a Career Insights Survey conducted in 2014, 83% of seniors who were upcoming college graduates did not know what their employment decisions were going to be (Rutt 2014). If a student has $25,000 in loan debts their monthly payment will be around $280. Although $280 may seem small to some people it can be hard to come up with when there are other bills you have to consider such as rent, utilities, groceries, etc. And if you do not have a job this may be impossible to come up with. The $25,000 in debt is just for your undergraduate degree but once you add $25,000-$30,000 more for graduate school those monthly payments will triple (Budgeting For Student Loan Debt, 2012).
The average age that students graduate from college is about twenty-two to twenty-three years old. That is supposed to be the time where young adults are setting up life plans like buying a home, finding a good job, purchasing a car, and starting a family. The burden of student loan debt causes students to have to put their plans on hold because of the excessive amounts of loans and interest that they are responsible to pay back. The standard payment plan to clear all student loan debt is ten years but it can take up to twenty one years for some students to fully pay it off. A four year education can cost you over twenty years of repayment which can cause some students to reconsider even attending college (Bidwell, 2014). This means the average college graduate will be between forty-five to fifty years old before finishing up paying back their debt for a four year degree. Many students could avoid excessive amounts of loan debt if they consider attending community colleges with substantially lower tuition rates.
There are many common myths about community college. Some people believe that if you attend community college you won’t get the full college experience but this is definitely not true and depends on what type of person you are. Many community colleges offer extracurricular activities for their students. TCC offers twenty-one different clubs in the Norfolk area alone. You can still get involved on campus and get to know people as well. Another common belief about community college is that they only accept students who cannot get into any other university which isn’t true.
There have been many proposed solutions to ending the student loan debt crisis. One solution proposed by Hillary Clinton which was to make college completely tuition free for students whose families make less than $85,000 a year, work a minimum of ten hours a week and plan on attending an instate university would receive assistance from federal grants through state contribution. The projected cost within 10 years would be from $350 billion to $700 billion dollars (Grigsby 2017). William Grigsby from The Wall Street Journal noted some major discrepancies within Clinton’s proposal. One major discrepancy he pointed out was that the proposal prohibits thousands of students who need tuition assistance because they choose to attend a private college. This will force students who want to attend private college but could use extra assistance to have to go to a public college and will cause overcrowding ( Grigsby 2017). The ideal proposed solution to the excessive student loan debt and the burdens students face because of it would be going to a community college. These two years attending the community college would save you on average in Virginia $17,706 (Kirkham 2017). You will still be receiving an education but will be saving a good chunk of money as well. Excessive student loan debt is an uncalled burden no one should have to deal with for the rest of their life. It is obvious that the student loan debt will only continue to get worse if tuition continues to rise. In order to avoid excessive amounts of debt students should take the community college route for the first two years and then move on to a university. Just for going to community college those four years you could save an average of $11,377 (Kirkham 2017). In some cases debt isn’t avoidable because not everyone has enough money to pay out of pocket up front but it can definitely be minimized. Not only would community college be beneficial for your pockets but also your well-being. You can still graduate from the university of your interest without the hefty price tag.