Student Loan Debt Crisis: Comparative Assessment of Sources (Essay Sample)

Student Loan Debt Crisis: Comparative Assessment of Sources
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Student Loan Debt Crisis: Comparative Assessment of Sources
Question 1
Richard Vedder and Andrew Gillen caution that student loan debt loan crisis will worsen if no mitigating actions are taken. They propose cutting federal aid and replacing it with private investment. In her article, Carolyn Maloney affirms the debt crisis and links it to devastating effects on an individual and the overall economy. Unlike Veddar and Gillen, she argues that cutting federal aid will actually exacerbate the problem because the private sector has a tendency to charge exorbitant interest rates and engage in many unethical practices. Accordingly, she argues for free tuition in community colleges, investing more in Pell Grants, and interstate partnership to increase education access. I agree with Maloney’s claim. The private sector has proven to pursue a profit-making goal rather than ameliorating the crisis; realigning priorities to strengthen public commitment in higher education thus making it free and accessible to all seems more plausible.
In constructing an effective P/S proposal, both sources would be appropriate. Vedder and Gillen’s article can help to establish the origin of the problem: assuming that everyone is capable of handling collegiate environment, ignoring basic labor-market basics, and initiating a byzantine system of federal financial aid. Conversely, Maloney’s perspective can establish a case for increased federal and state spending in higher education.
Question 2
An analysis of Jillian Berman and Fresh Air’s articles reveals certain similarities and differences in the way they frame the problem of student loan debt. Notably, both articles articulate the drivers of the loan crisis, its implications, and the possible solution. Besides emphasizing that rising student loans is an issue of the hour, the first publication imputes it to rising tuition fees, stagnant wages, and declining federal and state funding on higher education per student. This condition is noted to pass huge burden to parents whose only options are to opt for cheaper schools, save, or pay tuition fees in manageable installments. Additionally, the paper argues that federal and state funding is the most promising way to solve the problem.
Berman reiterates the factors that contribute to increasing student loan debt with special emphasis on the role of higher education. The author argues that the loan crisis symptomizes an underlying troubling trend in the higher education system: “excessive spending.” Berman notes that learning institutions increasingly seek to outdo their competitors in status and prestige so they spend more on new elaborate projects, expanding university administrations, and other activities that only increase costs which are passed to students. Unlike the first article, Berman suggests that countering the loan crisis requires learning institutio...