After researching different approaches to student debt, I have come to the conclusion that I would like to focus on the emotional and financial effects of student loan debt on college graduates. I would like to analyze how these effects lead to "delayed adulthood," which can be defined as the delay of milestones of adulthood. Student loan debt delays life milestones such as moving out, getting married, buying a home and having children; therefore, impeding one's transition into adulthood.
My research led me to two sources, which I find the most important to learn more information on my chosen topic. The first source is, "The Crushing Burden of Student Loans: How Debt Weakens Family Formation among Generation X," by Allan Carlson, which focuses on cohabitation, marriage and birth. Throughout the article, Carlson provides statistics on the impact of student loan debt on family formation to demonstrate how the growing burden of debt is effecting family life among young adults. The second source is an information guide on the various dimensions of the student debt crisis by Prudential, titled, "Student Loan Debt: Implications on Financial and Emotional Wellness." This guide provides facts and statistics on the effects of debt on college graduates, while sharing tips on how to pay for college and manage debt. I found these two sources very interesting because they approach this topic from different angles and provide different information.
While researching, I did not find any controversies over this topic. I believe that this is because most individuals face challenges while trying to pay off their student loan debt. Debt is not something that individuals enjoy experiencing, especially because it causes personal issues to arise. Therefore, I was unable to find articles that present possible benefits of debt.
Links:
As an academic, I think the most interesting controversies are the theoretical ones -- the scholarly debates that can inform how we understand the problem and what actions to take. Melinda Cooper lays out the scholarly debate between economists on the two sides of the debate over how to support higher education to build human capital -- by using either public or private funding -- and she focuses on the contrasting stances of Theodore Schultz vs. Milton Friedman, and tries to explain why Friedman's ideas won out.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a still very unsettled argument over the effects of student debt on the cultural meaning of adulthood in this country, and a fault line in the literature is between those who see the effect as "delayed adulthood" (Tamara Draut's book Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead was a landmark popular book on that side, and she is interviewed in the Default documentary I mentioned) and those who prefer the term "emerging adulthood" -- which is a coinage of Jeffrey Jensen Arnett (you can find his seminal article here: http://jeffreyarnett.com/ARNETT_Emerging_Adulthood_theory.pdf, which is off of his website). Arnett has built his whole academic career around this idea, and he recently updated his book (titled Emerging Adulthood, of course).
Those of the "delayed" camp are typically looking for "social work" type solutions to help young people get unstuck or "launched" -- to move on with their lives along the usual life course. And they are concerned about the economic impact the delay has on both individuals and the larger society (as fewer young people get married, have kids, buy a home, etc. -- at least according to the "regular schedule" you'd expect.) Arnett and the "emerging" camp talk about how the delay in the standard milestones of adulthood creates lots of time for social and cultural change, and a greater freedom from age-old standards of gender roles, sexuality, family formation, etc. Basically, he is much more interested in how the underlying economics are creating larger social change.
Personally, I am interested in Arnett, but mostly because I think his work should really wake up the social conservatives and neoliberals and get them to think about how the shift toward privatization has actually undercut many traditional family values (which they hold dear) by making it very hard to have or maintain a traditional family for the majority of people.
I am sure there are other controversies out there, and we will be talking about how to find scholarly articles that will help you identify different camps. But that "emerging" vs. "delayed" difference is an interesting one.
I like this article you found by Carlson, who seems to represent the "delayed adulthood" camp very well, and he points to policy steps that can make a difference:
ReplyDeletehttp://familyinamerica.org/files/5813/8783/1094/FIA_Spring10_Carlson.pdf
I especially like the way his article is exactly the type that will wake up social conservatives and neoliberals and get them worried about student debt. Good find.
The latest Chronicle of Higher Education has a great story about student debt. I will give it to you in class tomorrow. Meanwhile, it occurred to me you might consider looking at the different political proposals put forward that suggest cancelling student debt. The Aspen Institute studied various ones last year:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/student-loan-cancellation-assessing-strategies-to-boost-financial-security-and-economic-growth/