Without addressing
average college debt from the student education loan, President Obama recently
declared that America remains the country to beat. "We are home to the
world's best colleges and universities... where more students come to study
than any other place on Earth." I tend to believe the President on that
statement.
Later in the speech
he told us that "America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young
people with a college degree."
I can't help but
wonder -- is that necessarily such a bad thing?
Can I Get A Job To
Pay My Student Education Loan?
What concerns most
of us is jobs -- jobs that enable a college graduate to enter the workplace at
an income level where he or she can make ends meet and manage student loan
repayment without parental financial support or more government subsidies.
According to the
report by The Project On Student Debt, for graduating students the average
college debt is $24,000. After adding in the interest, the payback can escalate
to over $31,000.
These days it's tough
to find a job to cover basic overhead, and most young people don't factor in
the cost of their student education loans until reality sets in. College
tuition and fees have risen four times that of the median income since 1982.
Graduates are not getting jobs and cannot pay off their college debt.
Teach Student Loan
Finance
At 18 years old,
most have no idea what field or career will fulfill them. High schools should
teach student loan finance first, before these young adults take on the
crushing burden of college debt for dreams of a future they cannot foresee.
According to
Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, authors of the new book, "Academically
Adrift," 45% of students fail to show any improvement in critical
thinking, complex reasoning, or written analysis after two years of college,
dropping to 36% for seniors.
I believe it is not
colleges that are failing 46 percent of the students, but rather, many of these
failing students should not be there in the first place.
A senior college
faculty member made the point that course expectations have declined for
decades, leaving many college graduates unprepared for their future careers.
Such emphasis is placed on college education in favor of the trades that
inflated high school and college grades reward mediocre scholastic achievement.
Many young people
who would have been more productive in a skilled trade that fulfills them are
funneled through the higher academic system, but even top-tier doctors or
lawyers may not be able to keep up the student loan repayment on their tab of
$100,000 or more.
Student Education
Loans -- Follow The Money
Current statistic
show there are over 11 million enrolled in colleges and universities.
Approximately 2/3 graduate with college debt.
If average student
loan principle is $24,000, students must pay back college debt of $31,000.00,
including the 36% of seniors who maybe should not have been there in the first
place. That is approximately 1,980,000 students who have shown no progress in
thinking, reasoning, or analytical skills yet have taken out student loans
totaling about $47.5 billion U.S. dollars, PLUS an additional $13,860,000,000
in interest.
You read it right
-- these students owe $13.8 billion in interest.
Who gets this $13.8
billion interest income? Who took over the student loan program? The federal
government. The administration has a big incentive to get every young man,
woman and their parents convinced they need to attend college and in debt
themselves.
Reducing The
Student Education Loan
Whether a young
adult should attend college must be answered on a personal level. Here we seek
the answer to lowering national average college debt.
One solution
gaining in popularity is online classes. Usually some on-campus participation
is required, while core lectures are provided by an instructor, online.
Returning students
have been able to complete college educations through online degree programs.
Younger students can reduce their housing and commuting expenses by taking
classes at home on their computers, to avoid starting their career with a
student education loan.
To download a FREE
report, Unravelling The Maze Of Student Loans visit http://LoanCreditFacts.com, where you can
access hundreds of free articles on credit issues such as what to do when you
have bill collectors calling, DIY loan modification success, business loans,
home improvement loans, real estate mortgages and of course, student loan
repayment.
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