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Raudel Aguilar
Professor Turner
English 114B
17 May 2017
Injustice In Education

There are many institutions in current society that have shown some form of injustice.

One of the institutions that shows injustice is the higher education system. The higher education

system is any form of education after completing some form of grade school, whether that be

college, vocational school, or any other education system where one must pay money to attend.

The high cost for attending these schools is leaving people asking themselves if continuing their

education is truly worth it. Although college can change the lives of many people by creating

opportunities, college can also be the downfall of somebody and cause that person to owe tons of

money for many years to come. There are groups of people who believe that college is the way to

go and truly believe in the education system, even while being in deep debt. Furthermore, the

people who are paying so much money to go to school are not even guaranteed a job once they

do finish with their education.

The amount of money being paid for a higher education isnt equal to the outcome after

college for many students. The debt that students accumulate after coming out of college is

massive, and they will spend years working hard just to finish paying off their loans. Per a data

sheet from ticas.org in 2015, the average debt for a student coming out of a public college in

California after graduating is about $22,191. The website also states that, the percentage of

students in debt in California is 54%. This not only shows the average loan after graduating, but

it also shows how the student debt is rising and shows just how high of a percentage the debt is

in certain areas. The stats were posted back in 2015, and there is always a constant rise in tuition
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and other fees, so the amount of debt and percentage of students who are in debt, has most likely

gone up.

There are many benefits that come from getting a college degree in certain aspects. The

outcome and payout a student can receive after graduating can be immense, and allow them to go

out and find a job that interests them. For the people who can get a job right after college, their

lives are pretty much set. They can live comfortably and if they get a well-paying job they can

also pay off any loans. Getting a college degree can also help increase career success, and as

stated by author Tricia Hussung, Earning a college degree is a smart way to increase career

success. College graduates have skills that qualify them for a wide range of careers with upward

mobility. So, someone with a college degree is more likely to have a stable job than someone

without one and many companies are looking for people with some form of higher education to

hire, which is why we instill to younger minds that college is one of the only routes to take in

order to be successful later in life. According to an article on The Washington Post, author

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel states that, Researchers at the [Georgetown University Center on

Education] found that out of the 11.6 million jobs created in the post-recession economy, 11.5

million went to people with at least some college education. This shows the need to having a

degree to get a job, and Douglas also adds how, People with a high school diploma or less

education landed 80,000 jobs in the recovery. This further proves the need for a college degree

today.

However, there are some cases where many people believe that college isnt the way to

go. A prime example being my current situation, every day I constantly get told by my peers how

I need to go to college if I want to be successful and make enough money to live comfortably.

Although theyre correct to some extent, the thing that counters that would be how my father is
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currently close to making $100,00, and he didnt go to college to achieve that. Matter of fact, he

dropped out of school when he was in 7th grade, which meaning that he didnt even need a

college degree. He didnt have to ever worry about getting a higher education from dropping out

or ever having to pay off student loans. There are also the examples of how a few of the worlds

richest men dropped out of college. According to an article written by Rachel Gillett, there are

plenty of jobs that many people can get without a college degree that offer an annual salary of

$80k. Further proving that someone doesnt need to go to college to make the same amount of

money as someone with a college degree, such as my dad.

Another argument is how after someone is finished with college, they arent guaranteed a

job, and must go out into the real world to fend for themselves. Assuming that after having to

pay schools tuition, the school could at least provide a job as some sort of reward for having

worked hard throughout the course of time spent in college. However, the truth is all the colleges

only care about is getting paid, and if you dont successfully pay the tuition then the college will

disenroll the student. Many people also wonder why it is that college costs continue to go up. It

doesnt have to do with inflation, and as stated by an article from cnbc.com, if annual increases

had simply tracked the inflation rate since 1971, next years tuition [for Harvard] would be to

just $15,189. Colleges see the fact that many companies require their employees to have some

sort of college degree, and boost up the prices and basically force students to pay that for the

chance at having a better life. The article also states that, With millions of recent debt-burdened

college graduates still underemployed by one of the worst recessions on record, many students

and their families are wondering why tuition keeps rising, and how much higher it will go. After

so much time seeing the cost go up, people are still very confused as to why its going up so
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much. Its clear that colleges are already making more than enough money to maintain the

schools, and yet the costs are still skyrocketing.

There is also the case where colleges do not take into consideration the students who

come from the middle class. There are plenty of different resources which allow people who are

in the lower class to help them pay for attending college such as FAFSA. There are also people

who come from the upper class which dont have to worry about the cost of college because of

the amount of money they have. The students who are stuck fending for themselves tend to come

from the middle class, middle class students are the ones that are taking out the most amount of

loans to help pay for college. Yet colleges dont see this and once again only care about getting

the tuition from the students. The amount of injustice doesnt just have to do with the school

system, but it also stretches out onto the financial system on paying for college.

Many people blame the way that federal aid calculates the amount that is expected for a

parent or guardian to pay for school. Author Jennifer Hutchison expresses her same concerns in

this system by saying, The financial aid formulas used to decide who gets grants and who

doesnt does not include other financial obligations that families have such as mortgages. This

is showing how the financial aid system doesnt take different factors into consideration when

handing out the student aid. The way that the financial system is set up, is setting up students to

be in a ton of debt right off the bat, as soon as they start attending school.

Another issue that many people deal with that shows the injustice of the higher education

system is the problem with student loans. Author Susan Dynarski states that, Americans owe

$1.3 trillion in student loans. More than seven million borrowers are in default, and millions

more are behind on their payments. I have yet to understand why student loans are such a

problem in America, oppose to other countries that do not face the same problem that Americans
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do. Dynarski also states that, Yet despite this widespread borrowing, there is no student debt

crisis in Sweden, because payments are spread out over 25 years. They also start out low, rising

slowly over time. In the United States, the typical repayment period is just 10 years. Although

Institutes should take systems like this into consideration to minimize the amount of debt a

person has, they have yet to do so. Apart from Sweden, there are other countries that have

different types of systems that are used to also benefit the students who are taking out loans.

Another example of the systems that seem to work is that of Australia where, according to author

Helaine Olen, Australia offers students an income-based student loan plan, and has since 1989,

when the system was set up to compensate for the fact that universities were charging tuition at

all. Debtors earning more than AU$54,000 pay between 4 and 8 percent of their income,

depending on how much they take home annually. The way the student loan system works in

Australia is all based on how much someone earns in their job after graduating college,

something that the loan system in the US doesnt take into consideration. Some people coming

out of college and cant get the job they wanted and are forced to take jobs that pay minimum

wage. This causes them to not have enough money to pay for the things they need to pay for,

such as rent, food, and student loans. This tends to lead people to get behind on student loans and

owing more money due to overdue payment charges. Some of the solutions that the U.S. can use

to help lower the problem, or just take care of the problem completely, would be to mix what

Australia and Sweden are doing. The US can spread the payments out into longer times, and go

based off the amount that the person is making and figure out something that they would be able

to manage to do. What the US can also do is set up its own system where colleges can offer work

to students for various things depending on the major and skills a student has, and instead of

paying for the labor, the student can be working to drastically bring down the price of their loan,
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or the students can also be working on various projects around the campus that will benefit the

school, and the schools can work out a loan forgiveness program for the students that help in

those projects.

Although some people see college as the gateway to a better life, there are many

injustices in the higher education system that leave doubts in a lot of other peoples minds on

whether college is worth it. The main injustice involving the higher education system is the

amount of money needed to pay to get a higher form of education, and how much the colleges

care for the student to make it in life. Whether that be from making sure that once the student

graduates they get a job making sure that students arent too much in debt, or making college

worth it. Apart from that, there is also loans that hold a lot of people back for a good portion of

their lives as they try to pay it off little by little, hoping that theyll be finished with it eventually.
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Works Cited
Douglas-Gabriel, Danielle. Still Questioning Whether College Is Worth It? Read This. The
Washington Post, WP Company, 1 July 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-
point/wp/2016/07/01/still-questioning-whether-college-is-worth-it-read-this/?
utm_term=.2780a5cc4d42. Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.
Dynarski, Susan. America Can Fix Its Student Loan Crisis. Just Ask Australia. The New York Times,
The New York Times, 9 July 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/upshot/america-can-fix-its-
student-loan-crisis-just-ask-australia.html?_r=0. Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.
Gillett, Rachel. The 25 Highest-Paying Jobs You Can Get without a College Degree. Business
Insider, Business Insider, 7 Nov. 2015, www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-you-can-get-
without-a-college-degree-2015-11/#25-postal-service-mail-carriers-1. Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.
Hussung, Tricia. The Benefits of Earning a College Degree. Striking Distance, Striking Distance, 2
July 2015, www.strikingdistance.com/benefits-of-having-a-college-degree/. Accessed 18 Apr.
2017.
Hutchison, Jennifer. No Aid For You: Cheating The Middle Class. No Aid For You: Cheating the
Middle Class | Commonplace, 2011, www.mhlearningsolutions.com/commonplace/index.php?
q=node%2F5782. Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.
Olen, Helaine. Australia Gets Student Loans Rightand It Should Make Americans Very
Jealous. Slate Magazine, Slate, 12 Nov. 2015,
www.slate.com/articles/business/the_bills/2015/11/australia_s_student_loan_system_should_ma
ke_americans_jealous.html. Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.
Schoen, John W. The Real Reasons a College Degree Costs so Much. CNBC, CNBC, 8 Dec. 2016,
www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16/why-college-costs-are-so-high-and-rising.html. Accessed 18 Apr.
2017.
State By State Data. The Institute For College Access and Success, Peterson's, 2016,
ticas.org/posd/map-state-data#. Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.