Student Loans

Giovanni Alfonso

Professor Egwaoje

Macro Economics Essay

Topic: A comparison of the Two articles “Let’s Pretend Student Loans are really about education” by Charles Smith and “Pay more get less” by Kim Wilmath

Purpose: to discuss the different lives that this economy is affecting and to show that tuition rates are very high. College tuition rates have increased annually at a rate of between 5%-10% for the past decade. As tuition rates increase, so has the amount of student loans. According to finaid.org, the total student loan debt in the United States is approaching 1 trillion dollars. I feel that these two articles really aggressed the issue.

During the study of higher education costs, both Wilmath and Smith would agree that the main concern for the universities and colleges across the country,is that university systems are moving away from being state-supported and more toward being state-assisted. Like Wilmath stated in his article, “while prices at universities have gone up, state support has dwindled. The extra tuition money is not filling the gap. That means students are paying more than ever and getting larger classes, fewer professors and fewer course offerings.” With that being said, not only are students taking fewer classes, but now teachers and educational figures have to accept larger class loads for the same rate of pay. It is tiring for both the teacher and the student and like Jacob said “I’m paying more money, it’s not looking like it. I’m not getting what I pay for.” So that proves that not only are the tuition rates increasing but the quality of education is depleting because teachers are tired from the larger classes. Also with loftier class loads it makes it almost impossible for the student to receive the one-on-one time he/she wishes to obtain from the educator.

It’s not only an issue in an educational matter, but to some degree it...