The Weight of Debt: Helping Students Cross the College Finish Line

Research suggests that students entering their freshman year of college are not completing their education and left with massive loans, no degree and sometimes worse off than they were before college. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard that tracks the number of students who dropped out with debt for each college, there was a total of 3.9 million undergraduates with federal student loan debt who dropped out during 2015–2016 fiscal year (Hechinger Report, 2017). The increasing cost of tuition makes it nearly impossible for students not to accumulate significant debt, but the danger does not understand the consequences of having debt without finishing a degree.

Below are my top three recommendations to avoid the pitfalls of debt and roadblocks of attending the college that is not a good fit.

1. Count the cost. High School students must integrate financial aid awareness to their decision making. Students should research the cost of tuition for their desired college, create a realistic budget and factor in student loans interest rates.

2. Be prepared. Explore the culture of the university. Several common factors negatively affect the academic; social; personal; emotional; and institutional adjustment of first-year students (Sevinc & Gizir, 2014). Does the university have measures in place to help students overcome those challenges?

3. Ask the right questions. Universities are starting to tackle the dropout rate by creating first-year experience programs (Noble, Flynn, Lee, & Hilton, 2007) Does the university have a first-year program or with a high retention rate? Do not be afraid to interview current freshman students as well.

The above list may look daunting, but with a little directive, you can take a big step to minimize your college debt, avoid being a dropout statistic and set yourself up to cross the college finish line.

About the Author

Marcus Hill has been an ordained minister in college ministry for over ten years. Marcus holds a Master of Divinity from Azusa Pacific University and a Doctor of

Ministry from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Passionate about first-year, first-generation and minority students succeeding in college, Marcus is currently pursuing a masters in the School of Education at Boston University with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration. Marcus is preparing to become an administrator and develop co-circular programs for living and learning communities at Tufts University.

References

Attitudes about help-seeking mediate the relation between parent attachment and academic adjustment in first-year college students. (2014). Journal of College Student Development, 55(4), 418-423.

Hechinger Report. (2017, November 7). 3.9 Million students dropped out of college with debt in 2015 and 2016. U.S. News. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://www.usnews.com/news/data-mine/articles/2017-11-07/federal-data-show-39-million-students-dropped-out-of-college-with-debt-in-2015-and-2016

Hoffshire, M., Ralston, N., & Lacho, K. (2013). College freshmen retention: The first year experience program. Allied Academies International Conference. Academy of Educational Leadership, 18(1), 31-35.

Noble, K., Flynn, N., Lee, J., & Hilton, D. (2007). Predicting successful college experiences: Evidence from a first-year retention program. Journal of College Student Retention, 9(1), 39-60.

Palmer, R. T., Wood, J. L., Dancy, T. E., & Strayhorn, T. L. (2014). Black male collegians: Increasing access, retention, and persistence in higher education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Sevinç, Seda, & Gizir, Cem Ali. (2014). Factors negatively affecting university adjustment from the views of first-year university students: The case of Mersin University. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 14(4), 1301-1308.