New Study Shows 1 In 3 Students Think The Government Should Stop Giving Loans For Expensive Tuition
Students are incredibly stressed about costs and the future, and it has some of them calling for drastic measures.
George Dolgikh | Pexels We all know that college tuition in America is way too expensive and only getting worse. Add in the new administration's crackdown on student loan borrowers, and the situation has perhaps never looked darker. And it seems to have led some people to think drastic measures are in order to fix it.
1 in 3 students think the government should stop giving student loans for high tuition.
The finance experts at WalletHub decided to take the temperature of today's college students to see how they're feeling about the financial commitments college requires and the way it makes them feel about the future. To sum up, things are not going well.
Their survey, which focused on a representative sample of 190 American students enrolled in a two- or four-year degree program, showed that students are overall feeling frustrated and worried about the relationship between their education and their future.
That's certainly nothing new and not remotely surprising. What is rather eyebrow-raising is one of the ways a large number of students think we should be tackling this problem: By refusing to offer student loans for schools that have high tuition, which nearly a third of respondents called for.
Government student loans are funded by tax dollars, and taxpayers should decide how they're spent.
It's hard not to feel like this sentiment is related to America's general swing toward right-wing populism, which has always had a distinct anti-education streak to it from the very beginning. The sentiment seems to be that if you can't pay for Harvard out of your own pocket, you don't deserve to go.
Which is boldly out of touch for several reasons, starting with the fact that it is not just rich kids who go to elite schools, and elite schools have become so expensive that even many wealthy people cannot afford to pay for them.
More importantly, government student loans are funded by tax dollars. Claiming the government should be in the business of deciding who gets to go to what schools is uh… well, let's just say it's "not the American way," and to demand such a change is cutting off your own nose to spite your face, to say the least.
It also doesn't solve anything anyway. Refusing to give loans to go to Harvard isn't going to make college cheaper for anyone else. But the fact that such a counterproductive and bizarre solution would even attract any support in the first place is a testament to just how anxious and angry young people are feeling about their educations and economic prospects.
The survey found that many students see college as a bad investment in our current economy.
The value, both perceived and real, of a college degree has been falling for years now for myriad factors, including simply the high number of people who go to college now versus previous eras. But it's also because, as we all know too well these days, a degree doesn't remotely guarantee you the success and prosperity it used to. In fact, once the impact of student debt is factored in, it often does the opposite.
Accordingly, WalletHub found that students today are deeply conflicted and anxious about even going to college. "Financial worries seem to be souring the experience for many young people who are currently on campus," WalletHub's CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou said.
WalletHub found that today's students are riddled with anxieties about the future, with 44% worried they won't find a job, 33% worried about their student debt, and 18% worried about the credit card debt they've taken on for things like living expenses and social life during their time in college.
Roll it all together, and you get a staggering 1 in 4 students who think their degree is actually a bad investment, which is online with many other studies in recent years, including those that have found that even many parents are starting to urge their kids not to go to college. Accordingly, enrollment has been declining for years, for the first time in decades.
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More government intervention in how and where people go to college—especially from the current administration that is so hostile to education in the first place — is certainly not the answer. Taxpayers should decide how the federal loan programs they fund with their tax dollars are used, not the government.
But it certainly isn't hard to understand why today's students seem to be at their wits' end with the absolute racket college has become in the United States. Between the economy cratering around us, a job market that is ever more inaccessible, and a government basically threatening student loan borrowers with ruin, who can blame young people for thinking the whole thing is a scam? Are they even wrong?
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
