Cynthia Cruz
Prof. Williams
Engl 1A
Dec. 22, 2013
The
Struggle for Education
We
live for the moment we cross the stage and begin the life we have been waiting
for, we have no clue what it is, but we have been preparing for it all our
lives. We realize it is nothing but high monthly payments to a school loan that
accumulated over the past four years. The pursuit to be educated and to be
different is no longer valued but a high price we must pay. There are two
questions a college student must take into consideration is do I value my
education or do I begin my experience in the working world. Education will take
you far but experience gets you hired quicker. Many of us today lean towards
education and begin taking out student loans we are manipulated to believe we
will be able to pay soon after we graduate. The sad truth is inflation on
interest is raised year after year that the payoff seems longer. Authors Tavis Smiley and Cornel West address that student
loans automatically put students debt in their novel The Rich and the
Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. Student loans are putting the
students in debt and are impossible to pay back from the lack of experience
from attending school.
Student
loans have been the governments greatest manipulation is getting money fed into
their pockets and the students without jobs. Many private banks no longer offer
student loans but by the government who set up their own annual interest rate
and the monthly payments they assume the student will receive. Receiving an
education is highly talked about everywhere we go and everything we set out to
do, even the commercials on television say it is as easy as picking up the
phone. Jobs we apply for even ask for some kind of college education to even
work an entry-level job. In
the book The Rich and the Rest of Us written by Cornel West and Travis
Smiley it stated, “America is experiencing the highest rate of long-term
unemployment in a generation, with almost half of the unemployed looking for
work”(65). As a student when you hear unemployment we think poor, uneducated
people who chose not to go to school but in all reality they are jobs getting
taken away by the government and moving them else where. Not just losing a job
but a career that was set out to be your life goal and be the financial
provider to your student loans.
Financially
student loans make more money by them just sitting there accumulating hyper
inflated interest while students attend school and try to pay it off once they
have graduated. Even though students are attending school to join society, it ends
up back lashing on the student because they walk into debt right after they
graduate. Unfortunately, there is no other choice but to take out school loans
since school have hyper inflated in the past decade there is no way to pay for
the tuition out of pocket. In the book The Rich and the Rest of Us
written by Cornel West and Travis Smiley it stated “the number of people living
in poverty rose by 2.6 million between 2009 and 2010”(16). Poverty has
increased dramatically because a large amount of this rate are students coming
out of universities with loans they cannot pay off, automatically putting them
in a poverty state because the loan will not be able to be paid back. Inflation
in poverty is only rising and the number of employment is lowering leaving more
students with an education with a debt they will not be able to pay back.
Student loans are putting the students in debt and are
impossible to pay back from the lack of experience from attending school, a solution that will help not have a high loan will be
applying for free grants that will assist students in going to school. That way
the student can pursue an education without the fear or being in an economic
deficit. Students want to be something extraordinary but the doubts that it
will not be stable or not enough experience is what holds us all back. Students
end up deciding on a career that we assume will be long term, economically
stable and always around. In the YouTube film College Conspiracy by Cayle Rose “College tuition has seen
5.15 percent annual price inflation for the past five years…total student loan
debt in the U.S. currently stands it 830 billion dollars and now exceeds credit card debt” (Rose). This
is college tuition alone not including personal debt or the price of a student
loan will add on. Student loans and the credit card debit go hand in hand
because not paying either one will ruin your credit for life. Personally wanting to be in the fashion industry is what I
lived for but when the odds are clearly against you, you go for a career that we
assume will always be there and always be needed.
College
may be the most expensive education we will receive but it is not the most
un-useful. Education is still the key to many opportunities and still is one
above the employee with more experience because the student will have the
mentality to work above an entry-level job. Student loans may be at their all
time high but the grants are not just a theory but also an actual solution to
the deficit of being in debt. Only possible solution holding one back is, are
we choosing a career for the money or are we choosing the career to be happy. In
the book The Rich and the Rest of Us written by Cornel West and Travis
Smiley declared, “putting on the armor to join the fight against poverty
demands that we confront our own fear- fear that allows us to remain silent or
downplay the truth and tolerate lies; fear of losing campaign funds, an
election, or popularity; or fear of retaliation or other unknown consequences.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the capacity to stand in one’s
truth with integrity no matter the consequence” (115). Poverty in the sense
that we live in a world we cannot afford, inflation at its all time high unable
to pay loans, debts and bills. Knowing the truth behind each lie are we going
to continue to let it happen or take a stance and fight for what is right. Willing
to lose our popularity and most importantly the materialistic that come with it
for the better of all. Student loans are like the hungry cockroaches looking
for food once you set down a trap they don’t keep coming back. Students just
need a way to work around the student loans and trap it before they get out of
control.
Bibliography
Smiley, Tavis, and Cornel West. The Rich and the Rest of
Us: A Poverty Manifesto. New York: Smiley, 2012. Print.
College Conspiracy.
Dir. Cayle Rose. 2011.
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