Comparative News Stories
The economic struggle of student-loan and personal debt is beginning to weigh on the shoulders of young students and voters for future American financial policies. An article by Forbes writes, "Perhaps students should take these facts into account as they ponder taking on a mountain of debt, or before asking Uncle Sam to rescue them from their current financial obligations." This same piece also references the data that close to 12 million students are borrowing annually of the near 20 million Americans attending college. The article offers insight to the economic decisions and struggles of young Americans. The financial choices made by many that concern higher-education may be reconsidered or even better regulated in the policies and years to come.
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An article by Business Insider International highlights the differences in college education costs and the affordability of these institutions as the United States' student debt hit $1 trillion. The piece by Adam Taylor serves to showcase the significantly lower sacrifices other students are making to receive higher education. For instance, the average education cost in Norway is only $596 while the median income is $26,623. These differences from the American picture are worth noting as our next fiscal policies are designed.
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The concerns for student loan debt and the ever rising cost of higher education are not strictly American, however they are a binding piece of our next years of economic policy and stature. Students in the United States are leaving universities to find a weak job market and an debt that has been growing out of control. The articles in comparison show the benefits to lowered and governmentally supplemented educations. Many European nations are coming alongside their scholars to provide higher learning while allowing them to be financially free from debt and exponential interest. This is ultimately a story of supply and demand, where the supply of college graduates has outgrown our country's demand. At the same time the demand for education has become greater than the economic supply to pay without the aid of student loans.
An interdisciplinary outlook can help explain this American trend. Psychology 101 at Michigan State University opened my eyes to the reality of Social Constructionism. A college degree has become an ingrained expectation of successful people, regardless of their focus and concentrations. This social understanding is not a universal ideal quite yet. In comparison to European educational trends, Americans see a college education as the next step towards adulthood. Overseas it is more common for young people to take gap years before heading to universities and working to pay for these costs upfront. It is a difference in social understanding of an education that has developed into altered economic standards for these nations and citizens.
Connecting the social and psychological concepts of a college education to the costs and debt associated is an interesting task. Reaching across concentrations we can see that these ideas are seriously related and can showcase the differences in American to European policies.