Shoot for the Clouds: Paying for College

When we first discussed the implications of poverty, we talked about how people with less money have fewer choices. And as juniors in high school, a large financial decision looms near; which college to go to. When we were younger, our parents always told us we could go anywhere we wanted, Harvard, Yale, wherever, as long as we worked hard enough. But in 11th and 12th grade, reality sets in. Not only is it nearly impossible to be admitted into these top schools, but paying for them is a huge financial burden! And the economic recession has only made paying for schools even more difficult. According to an article I found about the struggles people face when paying for college, "the average graduate owes average graduate owes $21,000, a number experts expect to rise sharply in the next few years. The typical undergrad also carries $2,200 in credit card debt, according to the nation's largest student lender." For years, students have been in enormous debt when they graduate from college, but this situation will, unquestionably, deteriorate on behalf of the current state of the economy. With recourses scarce, families have been forced to cut into college savings and spend them now, whether it be to pay the rent, the mortgage, or for groceries. And furthermore, many families never even had a decent savings account; 65 percent of parents put away less than 5,000 dollars in college savings, and 43 percent of these people had never even started saving for their child's college education. With colleges more reluctant to hand out student loans, banks more hesitant to lend struggling families large sums of money, hard working high school students are being forced to turn down their top college choices, the ones they have worked so hard to be admitted into, and turning to the cheaper, less selective schools.
It seems to me that the economic recession is altering the American Dream. We are now deemed unrealistic when we think that we can go anywhere, do anything, as long as we work hard enough, because there are so many financial obstacles that were either not there before, or that we are simply more wary of. Because our country has suffered tremendously from people getting into too much debt, we must stop thinking so idealistically, believing one day, we will get a job with a better salary that allows us to pay off our debts, and be a little more realistic; we must make the best decisions for the time being, rather than expecting things to always be better in the future. The "American" perspective has always been optimistic, but maybe this optimism has gotten us into trouble, into such debt. Students and their families are being forced to think realistically about their financial future, and are choosing the cheaper college, even if this cheaper school was not that "good school" they had always dreamed of going to. The American Dream for America's students has changed; it is no longer simply a question of how hard did you work? What grades did you get? Now, we must also consider where our parents can afford to send us, rather than deciding to worry about that after we graduate and owe thousands of dollars in student loans. The financial struggles our country is facing have put many American teens and their families in a more down to earth and practical mindset, even if this means, as Kathy Frenzel, a mother preparing to pay for her child's college education, says, telling your kids not to shoot for the moon, but to shoot for the clouds instead.