Most high school seniors will tell you that scholarships are a very important part of their future education. Without scholarships, financing college becomes even more difficult. Getting a good scholarship is practically necessary if you want to pursue higher education. However, it raises the question of why higher education is so expensive, and why so many Americans graduate with college debt.
Scholarships make up an important part of college tuition for most Americans. 58% of college students in the United States use and rely on scholarships to pay for college. As the cost of tuition rises, scholarships become increasingly more necessary to students wanting to graduate without debt. Scholarships are important because they don’t need to be paid back.
Many students’ other option for financial aid, loans, need to be paid back in a certain number of installments, and leave people in debt. Student loan debt is the second leading cause of debt in the US, with 20% of adults with undergraduate degrees being affected. Many of these people won’t pay back this debt until they are 45 years old, meaning they will spend two decades of their lives paying back debts.
This is putting many college students at a disadvantage. Especially when many students are pressured at a young age to go into college to be successful, and many jobs require a college degree. Many graduate jobs are very important; however, there won’t be people to work them if nobody can afford to get a degree.
Many countries outside of the United States have lower or free tuition costs. Germany, for example, is a country that offers free or low-cost tuition for most college programs. Germany’s higher education is viewed as more of a public good than a privilege only some get to go to. Many colleges in Germany are funded by the government, providing universities with funding instead of relying on students to pay the cost of the university.
If America shifted its focus on college away from the students’ responsibility to pay, and instead the state or federal government spent more investing in universities, it would do wonders for many students wanting to pursue higher education, and in turn lead to a better, more educated society.
