What does it mean when academia, an institution purportedly dedicated to educating its student bodies, fails to transparently and coherently educate its students on the contours of student debt and its consequences for learners in higher education?
My thinking right now is that student loans have both positives and negatives. The positive aspect of them is obviously that they allow the less well off to chase a higher education. Without these student loans, I know that going to a university like the University of Missouri would be out of the question for me personally. The negative aspect is that amount of debt that students can accumulate rather quickly, and that a lot of these students have no clue how to manage their own finances. So while it can help them with the goal of getting a college education, it can also put students in a financial hole that can be quite deep if it is not properly managed.
First thing I notice is that the article makes much mention of the social health associated with your financial status. Simply put, if you're in debt, you're more likely to show signs of anxiety, depression, and anger. After reading, my first thoughts were that there is a lot of data to have to go over from their test, but the point that they make is important to my own paper: "student loans are associated with poorer psychological functioning."
The article gives a lot of information regarding mental health for students who take out student loans. For one, in general, student loans lead to decreased mental health. A second point they made is that students who are lower-income and take out student loans actually see improved mental health, probably perhaps the loans are helping them improves themselves financially. The argument that they ultimately make is that student loans lead to poorer mental health while in school and during a former student's early adult life, and this point is backed up by the research that they did.
The impact that this article had on my thinking was that it reinforced an opinion I already had, and actually took it even further. I had assumed that student loan debt was a cause of stress and anxiety, but the article takes it farther by saying that it can affect all aspects of your mental health in general. While this article is important because it explains some of the implications of awareness of your student debt, it does not explain how many students are actually aware of this information, and does not talk about the university's role at all. It only really gives insight to the last subject of my question, however I feel that is a good start. One thing I would note is that the article also does not mention the importance of student loans, and how they allow so many students to go to college who otherwise would not have been able to afford it.
Some new questions that I have after reading this are: What does the university do to help students when it comes to their financial future after college? Are students actively looking for financial help while in college? Is the mental health impact that comes from taking out student loans ultimately worth it because of the value of having a degree? The only answer I have now is that student loan recipients generally have poorer mental health, but how many students are actively aware of their debt and what is the university doing about it?
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