It is no question that the U.S. is in a state of student loan crisis. The three articles that I read regarding the crisis were all regarding the most and least student debt based on region. Specifically, I read Adam McCann’s “2018 Cities with the Most & Least Student Debt,” Kali McFadden’s “Places with the Most Student Debt” and Richie Bernardo’s “2017’s States with the Most and Least Student Debt.” I thought this was especially interesting to see how the various states and cities matched up based on the time each article was written and how the state of each region’s student debt crisis changed over the course of the articles.(Good. But what is the problem with comparing across cities like this?)

Each article addressed the obvious issue: Americans are in $1.5 trillion dollars of student loan debt. Each article also touched on the fact that each student debt rates are increasing rapidly. McCann’s article, in fact, states that the amount of students graduating with $50,000 or more in student debt has more than tripled since 2000 (what are these degrees and how many people are actually in that kind of a bind?). According to the same article, Loma Linda, California, is the city with the most student debt, with a median debt amount of $41,059. However, in Kali McFadden’s article, she quoted Washington, D.C. as the city that owes the most in student debt with one in two over the age of 25 having postsecondary education and the financial burden that comes with it. Bernardo’s article from 2017 also attributes the highest student debt rate to Washington, D.C.

Some questions I have moving forward in my research are how can we lower the rates of student debt? Is there a possibility that tuition rates could be lowered? If someone holds a steady job for an extended period of time, is there a forgiveness option? How does all this debt affect our country? Does it really matter that we have so much debt? How does debt affect a college student in the long run? Does the thought of student debt prevent certain people from attending college at all?

Excellent blog post and questions. Keep up the good work here. 5 of 5 points