The American Dream Bailout

We all grow up chasing a dream of becoming something. Some of us dream of money, some of us dream of power, and some of us dream of making a change. No matter what your dreams are, our dreams all shares the same underlying principle of trying to make yourself a better person as we grow through life. We are told all through out our lives that the means to achieves these goals are simple: go to school, go to college, and then once you graduate you will have a career waiting for you and the only thing left to do is find a family that you can raise in your house with the white picket fence. Maybe it was the hardships I went through for this goal of the American dream or maybe I have hit the age in which I can see the flaws that most overlook (including me) due to the fact that we are so tunneled vision by the end reward. Whatever the delusion may be, many young Americans have had the wool pulled from their eyes, as life after college isn’t exactly playing out how most of us thought it would. There is a few reason why but the main flaws of college are first, there wasn’t a bunch of jobs waiting for us after the four years of college. Secondly college isn’t cheap so many kids have to take out students loans or try to work full time to keep up with the expensive lifestyle. Third, it is really hard to know what you want to do in life so many students will find themselves switching majors, tacking on another semester or two until they graduate in to a saturated job market. There are two reasons I wanted to write this blog post. I wanted to bring light to the flaws of a college life style and I also want to discuss the next American finical crisis: Student Loans.

With college being the difference in a life of poverty or a life of comfort many parents want their children to pursue a higher education. One problem- college isn’t cheap. In an attempt to make college more affordable the government passed the Higher Education Act of 1965 which offered more money for the universities, created scholarships, and offered low-interest loans for students. This helped encourage young kids fresh out of high school to continue their education by going to college but through time this system became corrupt. The college lifestyle went form a prestige place for higher learning and more focused studies to a place of late night mixers and epic stories of alcohol and drug abuse. College is portrayed in main stream media as a place of hot young college girls always looking for sex, carefree nights of partying with your friends, and the only thing you have to do to pass your classes is show up for the exams. This false perception baits many young kids who are looking for a way into this lifestyle and with scholarships and student loans this goal seems more obtainable. This perception of the college life is one big problem I have with college in present days because I see more and more kids that aren’t sure why they are truly in college and most times fail out. I also see kids who have everything paid for by their parents and waste all of their free time ( that they don’t have to spend working) usually drinking at bars or chasing down the next girl/guy in which to make a mistake with. Don’t get me wrong there is students who work hard and do make something out of the resources offered by universities but sadly a majority does not. This party mentality has corrupted our generation as well as the generation following us but to make things worse this all play no work lifestyle also has corrupted our economy.

With more and more kids going to college the amount of scholarships and student loans has also increased. It is the latter of the two that Americans should be concerned with because it seems student loans has became the next ticking time bomb that could sink America’s economy. Unpaid Student loans have reached an amount of 1 trillion dollars causing for student loans to be a greater debt then credit cards and auto loans. This rapidly increasing debt has many economists analyzing the ramification of what would happen if the student loan bubble pops. Many feel what is happening in Greece (a nation wide finical crisis) and other European countries is a foreshadowing of America’s future if we can’t figure out a solution for the student loan debt. Another side effect of these looming student loans (that most will only be free of when they pass away) has many young adults putting life plans on hold. The dream of getting a new car, buying a house, or even getting married is getting postponed until they can get their finical troubles fixed. This doesn’t mesh well with an economy that flourishes with consumptions of goods. Lets just hope some bright minds figure out a fix for this snowballing debt because we have seen recently what happens when an entire nations economy collapses. Greece is still trying to pull themselves out of thier finical crisis. 

 

A glimpse of the destruction in Greece

Two riot police men hit by a gasoline bomb

Now I'm not trying to say that America will end up in riots or follow suit with Greece but I'm also not saying America is safe from a disaster like this. This is why we need to change our way of thinking about things because in a life full of distractions it is easy to brush off serious matters. Whether we choose to acknowledge the problems or not 1 trillion dollars of debt isn't just going to disappear. Im no finical expert so i found this clip on YouTube that is a bit more informative on the finical crisis pertaining to student loans.

I would like to thank my friend Thomas (Scuba Steve) for debating this topic ever so passionately and forcing my curiosity to look deeper into the matter. 

Chris