Student Loan Crisis Analysis

In the year 326 B.C.E., Rome outlawed the use of persons as security for loans. No longer could people enter a form of slavery in order to pay back the loans that they could not afford. For example, in one story, a young boy named Gaius Publilius, who was enslaved for a debt that his father incurred to a man named Lucius Papirius, refused his lender’s requests. This led to his stripping and beating by the man before the boy could escape to alert others of the cruelty of such a system. The general public at the time began to realize the potential injustices that the system created, especially when fathers used their children as security on their loans. Finally, the Roman people declared that when signing a loan, a person cannot use their person,
First, while low income families receive grants, scholarships, and subsidized loans, a family in the lower end of the middle class has the problem of having too much money to qualify for grants, but not enough to pay for the full cost of attending college. They are forced to fill this void with student loans. For the middle class this is often the case that they do not receive the financial assistance that the lower class receives even though they may only make marginally more amounts of money. Now, this problem is probably unfixable due to the fact that there must be a cut off somewhere since not everyone can receive aid, but it is still important to realize and understand this point. Since the middle class accounts for about half of the American population, it makes sense that now that as they are having trouble affording college that the number of people who have too much student loan debt increases. It is no longer only a problem for the lower class, but now also for progressively more
With skyrocketing tuition costs and relatively less financial aid to cover the costs, our students will begin to choose to forgo college in search of employment. This will deplete our nation of skilled workers for the future. Fortunately, I, and countless others, believe that all is not lost. There are plenty of ways that we can relieve our students and their families of the new form of “debt slavery”- college loans. Initially, we must first spread awareness about the issue to students, families, schools, and our governments so that they can better educate themselves in order to make the best decisions regarding whether to attend college and how to pay for it. Next, there must be some sort of debt forgiveness program for the currently $1.4 trillion Dollars of debt that students currently hold. This will allow them to be able to save more money to spend on the economy elsewhere. We would be quite literally, investing in the future of our country and I believe that there is no greater action we can take as a nation. Finally, the government must allocate its resources more efficiently in order to award grants and scholarships to those who need help to pay for college. If each taxpayer agreed (or more likely forced to by law) to pay even $10 more dollars every year, the benefits would be substantial. On the other hand, in lieu of increasing taxes, our