President Donald Trump’s 2021 budget hurts college students
By: Jacob Politte, Online Editor
Paying for school in 2020 is a tricky thing. Student loans can take years to pay off, and paying out-of-pocket is something that a lot of people cannot realistically afford.
Recently, the president and his administration have released the fiscal 2021 budget for the country, and it cuts $5.6 billion from the Department of Education’s budget.
It’s rich that Donald Trump wants to slash the budget for student loans given the absolute disaster that Trump University was. It’s even more ridiculous that Betsy DeVos is somehow still running the Department of Education given the numerous controversies that have arisen during her tenure and her inability to spell words right on Twitter, but that’s an opinion piece for another time.
More specifically, among other things, Trump’s plan for the 2021 budget would likely eliminate subsidized federal student loans, and eliminate public service loan forgiveness.
I have a confession: I no longer have any student loans. I transferred to STLCC-Meramec from Southeast Missouri State, and I managed to pay off my student loans from there late last year. At this time, I’m paying for all of my classes out of pocket.
When the time comes for me to transfer to another school, though, I will have to take more loans out. Those loans, which will likely accumulate to be thousands of dollars, will likely take many more years to pay back, especially now that those subsidized federal student loans will no longer be there to help.
Even with assistance from FAFSA, it’ll be impossible to escape paying those loans back. And those unsubsidized loans are going to be much bigger. It’s important to note that unsubsidized loans accrue interest from the starting point of the loan, meaning that it builds up even while you’re in school. Subsidized loans don’t accrue interest until six months after you leave an education institution, and while you’re in school, the interest accrued is paid for by the government.
School should not be impossibly expensive to attend. Students shouldn’t have to be drowning in debt for years, or in some cases decades after graduation. The cost of tuition seemingly only increases each year across the board.
So if these debts continue to rise, then what is the point of continuing to go to school? Many people don’t have the grades or extracurriculars to get big scholarships, and maintaining the conditions those scholarships is not always easy. School should be hard work, but it shouldn’t cripple a student’s bank account in the process.
It’s already hard enough for college students in America, especially for those students who are shouldering the financial burden on their own. And it may have just gotten harder.
