Vaughn, Tia: Paglia

 College degrees are a way to better oneself and to move up the social ladder.  However, each social class is not on equal footing when it comes to obtaining a college degree.  Less than one in five lower-class young adults enroll in some type of higher educational program.  While the number of lower-class students involved in higher education has been increasing, it remains well below 45 percent. Research on why fewer lower-class individuals participate in undergraduate study placed the reasons on the cost of such an education and the inability to pay for it.

            

The poor economy has affected many people financially, which has consequently affected people’s ability to pay for a college education.  So many people in all social classes have had to take out student loans to achieve their goals of moving up the social ladder. The average cost of tuition and room and board are more than $12,000 a year at a public university alone. Adding books and other basics makes the bill is close to $16,000.  Of course, private education is more expensive, averaging about $30,000 a year.  Grants and scholarships that were once mostly received by the poorest students today now go to about two-thirds of all full-time undergraduates.  Still, some students are need loans to pay the rest of the cost. The financial burdens of loans are then expected to be paid, on average, within 10 years after graduating with a degree.  Loan repayment problems not only affect the middle class college grad but graduates of other social classes.   Student loan defaults are at their highest since 1998 and are likely to go higher.  The economy has also left many people without a job and that makes finding a job extremely hard even for someone with a college degree.  The paucity of jobs is yet another reason for the ever increasing loan defaults.   Having a college education seems to make no difference in finding a job in this type of economy.

            

Getting a college education seems to be adding to the stress of middle class people when the economy is not at its best. With the price of higher education getting higher and the increasing number of student loan defaults, it becomes harder than ever for the middle class graduates to climb the social ladder.   The middle class has always had to work hard to be successful future and now with this new found problem of trying to pay for higher education the middle class has to work even harder for the life they really want to have after college.