Students leaving college in more debt than ever

Justin Berg, Staff Writer

Intelligent, confident, hopeful, and tight budgets are all ways of describing students graduating from college.

Students graduating college cannot look forward to immediately going out and enjoying life during their prime. It is essential for most students to find a well-paying job right away due to the student loans they have obtained.

According to CNN, the average student loan coming out of college in 2015 is $21,400. With this liability, a chokehold is put on students’ lives until they are able to pay it all off.

Many graduates struggle to even pay the minimum monthly deposit, as it turns out to be a huge dent in the pocket in which many people cannot afford.

These student loans do not only affect graduates where they are now, but it pushes many milestones in life farther back. These huge debts could all possibly affect the time graduates get married, have kids, start their own business, or buy a car/house. Also, graduates are forced to put aside finding their dream job and are pressured into finding the first job they can get a hold of. This is all due to the fact that students must clear up the loans they owe before they can actually get started on their life in the real world.

A graduate in their 20’s should never be put in the situation of paying their debt immediately. They should be able to enjoy their new life and quite frankly the prime of their lives.

College prepares students for situations they will later encounter in the real world, but how are students supposed to obtain more than $20,000 coming out of college when they do not even have a job yet? College pretty much guarantees a degree but has a hard time guaranteeing a job after school which is proving to be crucial now more than ever.

Many times, the threat of obtaining a large debt out of college scares off many students from attending a certain school. If a student has the potential to attend a high end university, what should hold them back from doing so? Students who cannot afford to pay the high tuition most likely are turned away from the school for they know the future ahead of them (working extremely hard to pay off a huge debt) if they do so.

This is a bittersweet concept considering many students are not able to attend their dream school due to how much it costs. However, with the compromise they will most likely have less debt coming out and should be able to enjoy their new start in life a bit more.

The future for students graduating college has the potential to significantly improve at this point in time. However, students still find a way to make the most out of their college experience and are not paranoid immediately of the workload to come after they graduate.