Anya Kamanetz's Generation Debt

"Generation Debt" by Anya Kamanetz is a excerpt that stresses about the growing amount of students in debt. Throughout this passage, Penn researchers insist that there are five milestones of maturity: "leaving home, finishing school, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child" (148). They tell us that with every new generation comes new social and economic factors. With much speculation, this topic has become a very intriguing argument. What role does this current generation pertain too? Do my parents not constitute as being mature because they didn't go to college? What happens to the low income families who can't afford to pay their tuition? What people must understand is that a myriad of people, especially in today's society can't fit into these five categories because they are not able to or maybe they just don't want to. If a person chooses not to get married for whatever reason, does that constitute his or hers level of maturity? The problem with these milestones in society are that they are no longer as relevant as they use to be. …show more content…
The number of American students in debt keeps increasing day after day. To make matters worse, most of these students happen to come from low income families. So their families are already struggling to make ends meet in their household, but not only that, now they also have to worry about an extra burden upon their shoulders; college tuition. Many students who can't afford to pay these large amounts, usually end up dropping out or putting their careers on hold. According to a statement in the reading, "Almost one in three Americans in his or her twenties is a college dropout, compared with one in five in the late 1960s."(McGhee). The simple statement that college students dropping out of school has almost tripled in the last 50 years is