The ends of many college careers are approaching this December, and a large number of graduating seniors have finally wrapped their heads (if not their hands) around potential careers.
Perhaps NEIU has steered students in directions in which they feel capable of professional success, yet many still find themselves panicking about the future, as shown in a newly released study.
Between student loans and the credit card bills incurred in order to make it this far, apprehension regarding the reality of student debt is overwhelming. To add insult to injury, those exiting college today are served with the harsh reality that their financial burdens exist to a greater extent than they have in any other period of our nation’s modern history.
In the eyes of NEIU senior Patricia Shaw, a public transit-dependant student whose four-year school expenses equal enough to buy a luxury car, “we’re all going to die with these loans. They offer you all this money so we’ll owe them more, but how are we going to pay them off? It seems to me that in the big picture, it takes away from the things that we really want and keeps us from reaching our full potentials in the long run.”
In a study cited by Chicago Tribune on Oct 30, “44 of 50 states cut spending for colleges since the last recession in 2001, but only 15 boosted financial aid to offset the tuition increases that followed.”
NEIU’s Director of Financial Aid Marshall Jennings said, “We have not kept pace. Seven years ago or so the MAP [Monetary Assistance Program] used to be able to cover the whole cost [of tuition and fees] for the neediest of our students. That is not the case anymore.”
The investigation goes on to speculate whether or not students attend their first choice universities based on the outcomes of this burden.
In order to bring these issues to light, Campus Progress (CP), the college outlet for the Center for American Progress, has unveiled Debt Hits Hard, a nationwide campaign to educate students about their far-reaching dilemmas in the hopes that they organize to demand relief.
In a collection of statistics on CP’s Web site, they report that an average graduating senior’s debt in 2006 totals $3,200 owed to credit card companies and $18,900 in student loans – nearly four times than was the average 1- years ago.
Jennings said that the average student who has taken out loans while at Northeastern graduates with $10,000 in debt. He also clarified that that is debt incurred at Northeastern and does not include the debt of transfer students who may have debt from other schools. Jennings said that was an increase from 1991 but did not have the exact data available as to how much of an increase.
According to the CP Web site, ‘more and more students are delaying major life decisions as a result of increased student debt. Thirty-eight percent of college graduates delay buying their first house because of debt, 14% delay marriage, [and 14% delay having kids. Compared to 1991, those figures have risen by margins of 52%, 75 % and 100%, respectively.”
According to CP’s data, those attending “low-cost” public institutions are hit just as hard as those attending private universities. All of this comes at a time when Congress is reducing student aid drastically.
In an effort to better educate the public about their findings, Debt Hits Hard has taken out a series of ad spots in national movie theaters, including Chicago’s River East 21, through Nov. 9. Downloads of the videos can be seen on the video-sharing Web site YouTube, and information on ways to petition for the increase of federal grants and the decrease of loan interest rates can be viewed at campusprogress.org.
Although students are all being primed for variant degrees of success on many levels, it stands to reason that money will ultimately make or break students in a wide variety of ventures.