Most students attend college in hopes of earning money after they graduate. Devin Barletta just hopes to pay off the $20,000 in debt she will accumulate by that time.
“It is going to be looming there, waiting to be paid off,” said Barletta, a sophomore history major. “Big, scary debt.”
For students like Barletta, Anya Kamenetz, a Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Generation Debt: Why Now Is a Terrible Time to Be Young, spoke on the issue last Thursday night at Stamp Student Union.
About 50 students came to hear Kamenetz discuss the growing problem debt presents to college graduates at a time when the federal government is exacerbating the issue.
The talk came on the heels of the Deficit Reduction Act, which became law Feb. 8. The act reduced the amount the government gives out in federal student loans by $12.7 billion, while raising the interest rates on Stafford loans from 4.7 percent to 6.8 percent starting July 1.
States need to be more accountable for funding students’ education, Kamenetz said. She said federal student aid is at the top of the list in terms of accountability, but responsibility needs to be taken at the campus level as well.
At this university, the campus and state have taken steps to begin tackling the problem. The university is addressing growing debt issues with its Pathways programs, which divide students into groups based on income, guaranteeing students who come from poverty-level homes will graduate debt-free.
The state is also funneling extra money to financial aid, with Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) including $9 million in the University System of Maryland’s budget that will be used largely as need-based aid.
But students looking for relief in the form of federal grants will have to keep searching, Kamenetz said. The federal government has not raised the amount given in Pell Grants since 2003, keeping the grants at $4,050 per year, or roughly one-fifth of the $19,871 an in-state student could expect to pay in tuition and other expenses.
For low-income students, the lack of funding for Pell Grants takes their chances of completing a college education from bad to worse. According to Kamenetz, if a family is in the bottom quarter of the earnings bracket, a student from that family has only a one in 17 chance of going to college.
Kamenetz said college students owe an average $17,000 to $23,000 by the time they graduate. Paying off loans prevents students from buying homes, starting families and establishing credit records.
“They’re living in ‘Debt Anonymous,'” Kamenetz said.
Kamenetz said high college costs are already keeping students out of college, and the issue will only get worse. By the end of the decade, she said, about two million high school students who could go to college will not because they will not be able to pay the tab.
Prospects of high debt upon graduation are also influencing students to graduate early to avoid owing an even greater sum.
Kamenetz hopes the dire financial situation will change in the near future. She advocated working simultaneously on the federal and state level to fix the problem before it spirals further out of control.
“Opportunity in America is an unfair lottery,” Kamenetz said.
Contact reporters Jeff Amoros and Annabelle O’Hara at amorosdbk@gmail.com.
