Paying for an Education

I glance over an email to my LMU account with indifference, as I am informed that tuition will once again be raised 4% in the upcoming year. As a graduating senior, I brush this off with little acknowledgment. I will no longer have to dread the annual ritual of filling out a FAFSA form, waiting anxiously in response for a package that will hopefully hold the grants and scholarships I need to keep my student loans at bay. I will be leaving college with roughly $20,000 in debt, a relatively manageable sum when one considers the cost of a private, Jesuit education; a cost that seems to be rising with steady inevitability.

The average undergraduate who borrows leaves school with about $30,000 in debt, but this not typical of all cases. Of the 43.3 million borrowers with outstanding federal student loans, 1.8 percent, or 779,000 people, owe $150,000 or more. And 346,000 owe more than $200,000. In speaking with my peers, I have not found the sense of alarm regarding the accumulation of college debt that I expected, but considering the $60,000 price tag attached to an LMU education it is safe to assume someone attending this university either has the financial means to pay those expenses or has been able to acquire the financial assistance necessary to alleviate such a burden, and successfully avoided signing their life away in student loans.

However, I know this is not indicative of rest of the student debtors that have fallen prey to the loan crisis in America.  Wasteful colleges raise tuition every year even as middle-class wages stagnate and unscrupulous for-profit colleges bilk the unwary. The result for many is mounting unmanageable debt. This is partly a function of continuing economic hardship, but it also reflects how the federal government has become the biggest, nicest and meanest student lender in the world. With the pressure of college debt bearing down on them, students are now forced to make a choice of pursuing their passions and studying their interests or playing it safe and getting a degree that pays. While the cost of receiving a college education continues to soar, and the security once guaranteed by a bachelor’s degree begins to deteriorate amidst a flooded job market, college as a time of intellectual exploration and personal growth seems to more of a fairytale than a reality. Especially when the federal government is loaning with a smile and collecting with a fist.

- Andrew Armstrong