Webber, Douglas A.1, douglas.webber@temple.edu. "Are College Costs Worth It? How Ability, Major, And Debt Affect The Returns To Schooling" Economics Of Education Review 53.(2016): 296-310. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 14 Oct. 2016.
Based on the risk of debt and negative impact to mental health due to student loans, is it worth it for students to still take loans out for college?
My thoughts before reading this article are pretty straightforward: yes, it is worth it because a college education is ultimately extremely beneficial and opens up so many avenues for a person to explore in their lifetime. While reading, the overwhelming consensus is that the majority of the time, the debt is no issue because the amount a college graduate earns compared to a high school graduate is significantly greater. Article also notes that although this is true for many students, it is not true for everyone and this can change depending on how much they can expect to make based on their degree or how high their debt is that they rack up. After reading, the article has a lot of research regarding a lot of different circumstances to try and determine whether or not a degree is worth the investment. Again, the point of the article is that for the majority, college degrees will at some point pay off in your life after you graduate. I felt this source would be useful for my question because the research it did directly related to the question that I was wondering.
The argument of the article is that over your lifetime, the money that you invest into a college degree will for most students be worth the cost. However, it also notes that a lot of this can be changed depending on different factors, such as: the student's ability, the degree they seek, and the amount of debt that they aggregate. It also notes that for students who do not finish their higher education, the debt is not worth the time they invest. The evidence that they use for all of this is the estimated income in comparison with the estimated debt over the lifetime of a student.
When thinking about this paper, I feel like the point it makes is solid, but there are a lot of issues I could see in the research. For one, a lot of students tend to drop out, and I feel like it did not focus on that scenario enough. Another issue I have is that it only talks about student debt over a person's lifetime, but fails to acknowledge other forms of debt, such as buying a house, a car, cost of living, etc. I feel like for a lot of these degrees outside of STEM fields, depending on the amount that a student is taking out the college education may not be worth it. I feel like this answers parts of my question, but does not really fully answer it because there are so many scenarios students can go through in college. What if a student is in college for longer than 4 years?
The way this could synthesize with other sources is that for my sources that talk about the mental health cost of attending higher education, this would be a counter saying that although it may negatively affect your mental health, it will be worth it in the end. I am not exactly sure how to synthesize this one yet, but I feel like when I actually start my paper it will make more sense how I want to use this source effectively. My last source talks about class inequality regarding student loans, and I feel like it will more closely synthesize with that. I just need to finish reading it.
So my new question that I have is although the majority may be well off taking student loans, are student loans unfair to students from poorer economic background or who are from minority races? My answer to this right now would be that student loans are a part of systematic racism because they are more of a risk to potential lower-class students.
No comments:
Post a Comment