Although I have not taken out any loans, I know that paying off debt is a long, challenging road, that many individuals experience; therefore, I would like to dig deeper into this topic.
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| Here is an overall representation of the student debt crisis. |
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Blog Post #1: My Topic Idea
For the research paper, I am considering writing about the long-term effects of student debt. With the rise of tuition, more students and families are taking out loans to pay for education expenses. By the time students graduate college, whether with their bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree, they are swamped in debt. Student debt keeps individuals from reaching their financial goals because once they finish school, they must begin paying back their loans.
Although I have not taken out any loans, I know that paying off debt is a long, challenging road, that many individuals experience; therefore, I would like to dig deeper into this topic.
Although I have not taken out any loans, I know that paying off debt is a long, challenging road, that many individuals experience; therefore, I would like to dig deeper into this topic.
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This is a great topic, with a lot of potential angles. I recommend that you begin your research broadly and see what particular angle catches your interest -- then focus your research on that particular angle. Several students have written on this topic and their blogs might help you think about particular angles and lead you to interesting sources. Two of the better ones were:
ReplyDeletehttp://emilyrutgers.blogspot.com/
http://ryanbuttone.blogspot.com/
Ryan's approach is very interesting, because he looked at how the problem of student debt is one big factor that has changed this generation -- a generation that Anya Kamenetz called "Generation Debt" in a book by that title. One aspect of this generation is the way many are experiencing what some sociologists call (pessimistically) "delayed adulthood" and others (more optimistically) call "emerging adulthood" -- recognizing that an extended pre-adulthood allows for some really interesting changes in social norms due to their liminal state of transition.
So one angle is to look at how student debt is affecting students. Another might be to look at what solutions are emerging. If you pursue a solution-oriented angle, there are multiple angles within that: solutions can be systemic (how and why should we as a society change the way we fund college?), activist/political (how can people organize for political change in this area?), or individual (what possible individual responses are there to the student debt crisis?). Because the US is so individual-oriented, I have been seeing some interesting books coming out that angle -- including DIYU by Anya Kamenetz (which argues that people can educate themselves for careers without college) or Walden on Wheels by Ken Ilgunas (which is a memoir of one frugal young man's approach to paying off his debt and then figuring out a way to go to graduate school without incurring any more).
These are just ideas off the top of my head. I look forward to seeing what angle you discover.
You might check out the video documentary Default:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvQR93C6n2E
The film offers some compelling personal testimony of the ways that college debt has damaged lives.
Documentaries offer some interesting and compelling personal stories:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPcSYrPx3Ao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Oed3XJ9TQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p0HyjtfaMg