“I’m currently about $15,000 in debt, and I know the interest rates are going to catch up with me,” said Marcellus Hunter, a senior at Morgan State University.
“I’m not stressing about it, maybe I’m in denial. There’s nothing I can do about it but get out of here and start working full-time to pay it back,” he said.
Like millions of students across America, Hunter is only in his second decade of life, but has already accumulated thousands of dollars of debt from student loans.
According to The Huffington Post, the combined total of all outstanding student loan debt has crossed the trillion-dollar mark, and is only expected to increase.
With tuition costs going up every year, college has become a blessing and a burden. Less than 50 years have passed since African-Americans marched for the right to obtain higher education. Today, students of all races are marching for the right to get that same education at a price that won’t leave them penniless and in a vicious cycle of debt.
“I really don’t like it—it’s putting me in debt,” Gregory Hall, who tries not to think about his subsidized and unsubsidized loans, which are accruing interest as he attends class each day. Hall said that he commutes from Randallstown, Md. for classes at Morgan, and his parents are forking over as much money as they can for his education, while also trying to pay their own bills.
“I’m just trying to do my best so that I’ll get a high GPA and be able to pay off all of this,” he said.
The average student owes $25,250 in loans, according to The Washington Post. That debt soared nationally to $833 billion and surpassed the amount owed on credit cards nationwide in June 2010, according to FinAid’s Smart Student Guide to Financial Aid.
Every second the total student debt increases by $2,853.88 according to FinAid, but there are many students who receive some scholarships or grants, taking a major burden off those trying to get ahead and their parents.
“I’m lucky I don’t have to worry about loans,” said Brittany Day, a freshman from Maryland who earned an honors scholarship at Morgan State. Day said her father always stressed academic achievement as a way to help fund her education. “I’ve seen the debt that my dad had to deal with. He went to school online as a non-traditional student and he’s still paying Sallie Mae monthly.”
