While the staggering student loan crisis in the United States is nothing funny, comedian Hasan Minhaj has recently appeared before Congress to testify on the subject.
Mr. Minhaj was officially invited to speak before Congress after an episode of his comedy program dedicated to the student loan crisis aired. In his speech before the assembly, Mr. Minhaj touched upon authentic situations of a higher education students’ life.
https://twitter.com/hasanminhaj/status/1171518092398096384
Student loan crisis
There is an undeniable student loan crisis in the United States. While the popularity of higher education is on the rise, with a more significant percentage of high school graduates going to a university, tuition fees are also rising rapidly.
Recently, a study found out that California students are in the worst struggle when it comes to higher education expenses, as living costs in the state are among the highest for the United States.
To further boost his speech, Mr. Minhaj also gave an example of how students are asking famous people and celebrities to help pay for their college tuition. One example was a Taylor Swift fan who pleaded with the star on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/PopAIertNews/status/1161091361090789377
Practical examples
In order to prove his point to the congressmen, Mr. Minhaj prepared some assisting documents. During his speech, he decided to evaluate the amount of money all congressmen spent on their higher education, and how much that same education would cost nowadays.
It turned out that after he made these calculations, Mr. Minhaj discovered an overall increase in tuition fees of more than one hundred and ten percent (110%)
According to him, the average tuition fee for the congressmen was about eleven thousand dollars (USD 11,000) per year when they were students. If they wanted to go and study at the same higher education institution today, they would have to dedicate an average of about twenty-five thousand dollars (USD 25,000) per year.
What is the solution?
According to Mr. Minhaj, one of the main problems with student loans is that borrowers hare not given the opportunity to choose their lender. The system is structured in such a way that the Department of Education assigns lenders to each student.
What this does is diminish any competition between lenders, which in turn allows them to pump up the interest and make students pay more. For Mr. Minhaj, a step forward towards resolving the student loan crisis would be to democratize lending processes and introduce competition in this market.
