Student debt in U.S. approaches $1.3B with Rutgers among top contributors

March 8, 2017 10:17pm | By Adityaa Shukla

Photo by Jeffrey Gomez | The Daily Targum A report in 2015 showed Rutgers was one of the top 20 contributors to student debt in the country. It was the only public university to be included on the list, which together accounted for $6.5 billion of higher education debt.

Crippling student debt is a real issue for many students, especially those who attend Rutgers.

There are about 44.2 million Americans with student loan debt in the United States and the total student loan debt has reached a staggering $1.28 trillion dollars.

This is a common concern of many Rutgers University students, said Darleny Rivas, a first-year student in the School of Arts and Sciences.

“It is always a problem that lingers in the back of my mind and forces me to think about getting a good paying job right out of school so I can start paying back my loans,” she said.

Debt is something that follows a person even after graduation, which is what makes it so intimidating and scary, Rivas said. It can be seen as the first adult problem that students face after graduation.

"(The student debt is rising for) two reasons — first, the rising cost of tuition. The cost of a four-year degree has increased six times the rate of inflation over the past few decades. Second, for the past decade, we have flat lined in median income. College graduates are unable to acquire good, high-paying jobs," said Michael Elgawly, a professor in the Department of Economics, in an email.

The rising cost of tuition can be accredited toward increases in student amenities and large sports programs, Elgawly said.

When states begin to slash budgets, the first to suffer is higher education, he said. This is a problem because in order to fix it, people need to be educated.

Education needs to be valued in society more, he said.

"Because of these cuts, people who make decisions about how to allocate wealth in this country forgot that higher education is a public good. It’s a public good in the way roads and K-12 education is a public good,” said David Hughes, a professor in the Department of Anthropology.

This is why the student debt is so high in the country, Hughes said, adding that higher education is exemplified as a luxury even though it is now considered a minimum requirement for most jobs.

According to an article written by Hughes, the University does not do much to help students with their loan debt either.

The University's annual tuition hikes have ranged from 1.6 percent to 3.3 percent.

In 2015, The Washington Post and Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report showing that $6.5 billion — the equivalent of 20 percent of all student debt in the United States in the year 2013-2014 — was created by just 20 universities.

Ranked No. 19 for student debt, Rutgers was the only public university that made the list.

“Both Democrats and Republicans privatized the responsibility so your family is expected to pay a large part of your college education,” Hughes said.

In order for the student debt to decrease, people need to start implementing change at a local level through activism and voting for representatives that will advocate for a tuition change, Hughes said.

“To prevent future student debt crisis we need to educate parents on 529 accounts. These are tax-exempt investment vehicles that if started early in a child’s life, parents can alleviate if not completely eliminate the debt burden incurred by their children when going to college," Elgawly said.

Understanding different types of loans and repayment plans can be very helpful, Hughes said. There also multiple student loan forgiveness programs that students can research to better help them manage their loans.

In order for change to occur, people need to be more aware of where exactly their money is going because if this debt keeps growing, it has the potential to crash the economy.

“We’re in the first generation of Americans where students don’t exceed or meet their parents socio-economic status ... these problems will provoke rethinking on higher education,” Hughes said. "But hopefully with more awareness and activism, the student debt crisis will be lowered."



Adityaa Shukla is a School of Arts and Sciences first-year student. She is a contributing writer for The Daily Targum.

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