With a skyrocketing student debt of one point five trillion United States dollars ($1.5 trillion), it causes distress to the forty-four (44) million American population across the country. However, a study shows that inequality is counted as a determining factor on how a student deal with cost living.
From the year 2003 to 2008, student debt in the Bay Area jumped from six point two percent (6.2%) to twelve point two percent (12.2%), which shows that within a span of few years, the figure was doubled.
An average person who lives independently in the metro area of San Francisco has to save around sixty-nine thousand United States dollars ($69,000) in spending for necessity bills.
A senior economist from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Elise Gould, mentioned how dire the circumstance:
“Once you pay your mortgage and put food on the table and get to and from work you don’t have a whole lot left over to pay your debt.”
The rising racial wealth gap
Upsetting rising numbers have found that correlate about the racial issues which concern about the student debt.
Neighborhoods with a huge chunk of black and Hispanic locals show that nineteen point nine percent (19.9%) of total borrowers are at the minimum behind on their student loans for ninety (90) days. While similar districts but has the lowest percentage of black and Hispanic locals point to a total number of six point seven percent (6.7%).
Treasurer of San Francisco, José Cisneros, stated how “impossible to ignore” these numerals:
“Student loan debt is accelerating the racial wealth gap in San Francisco, across the Bay Area and nationally.”
“These findings are stark, upsetting, and impossible to ignore.”
These noticed trends in the Bay Area indicates the student debt crisis which similarly reflects on how it threatens education globally today.
In a report released by the Fed researchers:
“Student debt burden is especially concerning in the Bay Area, where incomes have not kept pace with the skyrocketing cost of living, and income inequality has increased significantly over the past several decades.”
“Stagnant wage growth has made it hard for low-income families in the Bay Area to cope with rising expenses.”
Another report was found that the highest prevalence of people who have a student loan in the region is Solano County which has fifteen percent (15%). All the while, it has the lowest number of twenty-one point seven percent (21.7%) of total borrowers who earn a bachelor’s degree.
With the social issues in place, student loan borrowers attend school with limited resources as well as being targeted of the “subtlety of while cultural expectations” in terms of career opportunities that could hinder to pay off the debt.
