The Importance Of College Debt

As an eighth grade student, I’ll be going to college in five years, and with any luck, not paying nearly as much as students pay now. The current student debt totals $1.4 trillion, with an average debt of $37,000 per student. That’s insane. What about the smart students who can’t afford college? The ones who could turn their life around by getting their degrees? According to an article from The Christian Science Monitor, "This average is higher than ever before, and it represents a huge range of average debt loads at different schools, from $3,000 to more than $50,000.” Debt is forcing many students not to finish college and go straight into work. That means they’ll get stuck working at McDonald’s. The rise in college fees has been an issue for many years now and it haunts millions of Americans. Not only is college extremely expensive, but the fees just keep increasing. “In the four years since the 2011-2012 academic year, net tuition has increased by 3.1%,” says Tampa Bay Times. People can not afford college now, and their debt will only increase. I, myself, sometimes worry about college and how much it will cost. But there is some good news. Fees are rising, but the increase has …show more content…
College textbooks cost a fortune, and it stockpiles onto the already trifling cost. Keep in mind that you won’t use the textbook forever, you’ll be done with it once the course is over. The cost of buying textbooks can add up to about $1,000 a year or more. That’s not all, though. The textbooks keep increasing. “College textbook prices rise about 6 percent, on average, every year,” according to The New York Times. When textbooks rise, so does student loan debt. What I want to know is, why do public schools hand out textbooks for free, but not colleges? There are many options that colleges and companies can make to lower the cost or hand them out for free. Textbooks should not be costing this