User talk:Jenkinsm2

College Debt, A Combination Of Dangerous Lenders And Foolish Youth

College is more than just an expensive prospect, it’s more than a four year investment, in many ways college is one of the most dangerous times for young adults. Over the last few years the interest rates on college loans have sky rocketed, tuitions have risen and state as well as federal financial aid has dwindled. For many college students the reality of these situations does not kick in until graduation, which by then means it’s too late. This is the true danger of college, exploitation by private lenders and the ignorance of youth. Many students who attend college without finical aid rack up thousands of dollars in dept (many go over thirty thousand dollars). But this common information, which is supposed to scare students into action has not made a dent in the situation; on the contrary, it has promoted it. Many college students have accepted the fact that college is expensive and therefore they are ready to accept this debt as an unavoidable truth. I have heard countless students claim that their parents make too much money for financial aid but not enough to help with tuition. However, I have never witnessed a campus rally against rising interest rates on loans or rising tuition. Instead, I see easy to fill out loan forms from companies who have been caught bribing financial aid officers. My point is simple, the less proactive we are about education finances, the more students will accept college debt as an unfortunate compromise, which leads to more politicians who will look the other way as lenders put young workers into debt that will take decades to repay. While large protests and massive student involvement would no doubt create larger change, individual choice and effort, unfortunately, remain the best way to deal with our college education. Individual students have two very important tasks to perform when it comes to this finical issue. First is becoming proactive with your education and finding financially smart ways to fund college. This means spending time and energy. Researching everything from finding resources that will help fund your college career to budgeting plans to keep loan interest from getting enormous. This kind of research leads to the second task, creating awareness. If one student cares finds that they can save themselves thousands of dollars through finical planning or scholarship hunting, then I am sure that another student would like to know how. College students are some of the most impressionable individuals in the world; many young people go to college to find what they want to do with their lives. The more one proactive student shares their results, the more the students will shake off the illusion that college has to be a debt trap. Destroying this negative construct is the first and possibly most important step in taking control over your educational debt. Just remember, it doesn’t take a genius to intelligently finance college, but it does take a fool to passively accept thousands of dollars at 6.8 percent interest.

College finance resources: http://www.fastweb.com http://www.ed.gov/students/college/aid/edpicks.jhtml?src=ln http://www.salliemae.com/before_college/students_plan/ways_to_pay/reducing/reducing.htm