Today I went to the university I go to for a checkup on my financial aid. Everything went smoothly. My account was updated enough to include the new money that was given to me in the form of a couple of grants. I think the amount revolved around $5,500 in total for the school year, which is great. Now I only need to wait for one more scholarship to come into my account for me to be fully set for class. And with that being said, I can finally relax until the fated first day of the new year. I feel good, very good to be in fact. I wonder how the rest of my class are preparing for their school year. They must be doing the same preparations as me, right? I think so. This is part of the routine we students do in our quest of attaining the highly sought-after college degree.
It’s no easy task getting that degree, that’s for sure. However, with less than two years remaining in my college career, I have been thinking about what it will be like for me after I graduate from college. Some new obstacles will have to be tackled such as housing, employment, food, and transportation. You know what I mean when I say these things, reader. These are necessities adults have to fulfill for themselves, and soon enough, I’ll act like one of tem too.
One thing I don’t have to worry about aside from those issues are loans. Up until now, I’ve only accepted grant and scholarship money. I have NOT accepted loan money. The reason for this is because I’m wary of what will happen once I accept those loans. I will be therefore obligated to pay it back, and that’s something I don’t want to do. I just want to focus on my studies and not worry about money. Sure, I have been the recipient of a fair amount of loan offers from God-knows-where (I honestly don’t want to bother researching about how I got them. I just want to say what I want to say right now.), but it’s not worth it for me to accept them. I can say that without any anxiety because I’m not dependent on that kind of compensation. I’m in a position where I’m able to refuse loans and be fine without it as a result. Just grants and scholarships will do for me.
And for someone like me who is enjoying this luxury, it must be painful to see the rest of the students across the country, not just from my university, who are experiencing the complete opposite of the pros financial aid can bestow on the unfortunate. I may not be precisely correct, but I’m assuming there are students out there figuring out right now how they can pay off debt totaling at approximately $5,000-$100,000. Now then, I’m no big-shot mathematician, but I can safely say these numbers are stupidly big. And if these numbers are big, then that must not be good for poor students like me. Man, some big newspaper should hire me for using great math.
We all know the story about student debt. They are killers. They can destroy your livelihood. It can break your mind. It will follow you around until you die. It is, like time, cruel. It scares me as well. Can you imagine paying back a $10,000 debt immediately after graduating from college? Hell no. I would not like that order, thank you very much. Fortunately for us common folk, there’s a grace period installed before we’re properly charged with the debt, so that’s a plus we can live with. The problem with that, though, is the grace period only last for 6 months, which means you’ll have to work very hard to amass the amount of money you owe in a short time—if you want—so that you won’t have to deal with that debt problem in the future. Some students probably did exactly what I said and got rid of their thorn very quickly. On the other hand, others did not thanks to their own personal issues.
And what happens next to the latter? If they don’t pay back the loan in a while after the grace period, then the interest rate accompanying it may play a daunting role in ballooning the growth of the said debt. This, in itself, is another problem altogether so I’ll leave that aside. It just gets too annoying for me to elaborate further and I’ll be forced to turn into a financial expert if I do that. Ugh, I’m off-topic.
The point is student debt can get really ugly really quickly and some of them are not capable of dealing with it on their own. They’ll probably fall under the pressure. They will most likely rely on assistance thereafter. And if even that doesn’t work, then they’re screwed. They’ll be forced to attempt to file for a loan forgiveness or cancellation.
That’s not right, though. Students graduating from school shouldn’t worry about paying their debt. They should instead worry about finding a job and be a productive member of society. It’s the ideal situation everyone wants to have, but alas, that’s not the case. Student debt has strained the young Americans of today. It is the result of having no choice but to accept hefty sums of loans for the advancement of our education. Some are lucky to make do with just grants and scholarships, like myself, but others are not.
Although financial aid is largely advertised as a blessing for students, it is, in reality, also a gateway for being entangled and tortured by the chains of debt.
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