Caitlin Lane

8/28/18

Student Loan Reading

Article: Arkansas Student Loan Debt at $9 Billion, Small Part of $1.9 Trillion in US

(https://talkbusiness.net/2015/08/arkansas-student-loan-debt-at-9-billion-small-part-of-1-19-trillion-in-u-s/)

Article: Student Debt is Worse for Women

(https://www.chronicle.com/article/Student-Debt-Is-Worse-for/244145)

Article: Wallet Hub

(https://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst-states-for-student-debt/7520/)

One obvious common theme across each of these articles was that the student loan crisis in the United States has reached in the trillions (be specific – it is about $1.4 trillion). Each article suggests that with each passing year, the crisis only seems to be going up and with no end in sight. None of the articles offered a suggestion of how to fix this problem which offers a vague inclination of impending doom. When do we draw the line? Another common theme between these three articles was that the debt largely had to do with gender and location.(again, which ones have it worse off? be specific)

In the first article it said that Arkansas was ranked 22nd worst state in regards to student debt. This was interesting for me as I am attending school here and had never thought about our state’s ranking. The third article also spoke about how a more urban location can have higher loan rates due to the surrounding areas significance such as New York City. Based off these readings, it is key that a student research their ideal university location in order to get a better understanding of what the going rate for a loan might exhibit in that region. There is also an umbrella theme that students research and be knowledgeable about why a rate might be higher in one state than another and how that can be used to their advantage.

Lastly, I found it very interesting how a person’s gender could determine if they have a higher student loan debt. In the second article it mentioned that women are given higher debt loads because they are more likely to go to a more expensive college or university as opposed to men. Again, I had no idea about this information and was shocked to find out and made me wonder why it was not common knowledge among undergraduate students. But one thing I would like to see in any future articles is updated data and information about the University of Arkansas. The latest recorded data in the first article was taken from 2013-2014 even though the number of undergraduate students has risen exponentially. (Good point)

Good post – just avoid writing in generalities and give us some specifics, like you did in the last paragraph. 5 of 5 points