THE DEBT FACTOR

It doesn’t matter if you’re a high school senior or a person looking to change careers; graduating from college is an accomplishment. The average person spends anywhere from 2 to 5 years or more finishing an undergraduate degree. Spending hours dedicating themselves to achieving that important piece of paper that grants all the rights and privileges of saying Alumnus, what many college administrators neglect to tell students about is the debt factor. The debt factor is the amount of interest earned each month on monies borrowed through both government and private loans. Let’s face it, not every individual has the resources to receive tuition reimbursement from their employers. With many companies cutting back, some have taken away these perks. So what does it all mean for the average student? It’s a dollars and cents game, where more payments are going toward the interest than the actual principal amount. A $75,000 loan may cost a person a $350 payment each month. Depending on the interest rate, approximately $15 a month will actually be applied to the principal amount. That means a person may pay $4200 a year, with $180 going towards the principal and $4020 going to the lender. These are the numbers that no one talks about when signing a student loan.

It’s overwhelming to carry so much responsibility when in the end all that a person is trying to do is become more marketable. We all can’t be Congressman and have our children’s college education paid for by the people. The added burden of college repayment falls on the individual and there aren’t any significant laws that have been passed to ease the debt factor. What is needed more than ever isn’t stricter prevention acts, but rather laws that put caps on student loan interest rates. One in every five households will be affected and another 2.2 million people 60 years and older will hold student loan debt well into their ‘golden years.’