Currently, there is a rise in the number of students taking out loans to pay for college. This growth in student debt can be attributed to many sociological factors. When applying ideas from the sociological imagination, we can examine how social forces play a profound role in shaping individual lives. Factors such as why students acquire debt, types of people who need loans, and how students are able to receive financial aid influence the rate of student loan debt.
To start, the term, sociological imagination, was first coined by C. Wright Mills to describe how factors in society can influence a person’s life and vice versa. When examining the student loan debt crisis, it is important to use the sociological imagination to look beyond the statistics at the factors that may have caused this trend to occur. According to Eric Pianin from
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According to Alison Burke from Brookings, “since 2000, there has been an upsurge in the number of “nontraditional borrowers” attending for-profit schools and, to a lesser extent, community colleges and other non-selective institutions”. Students attending these nonselective schools more commonly have trouble finding higher paying jobs once they graduate and thus have a harder time paying off loans. Private universities and community colleges who don’t receive subsidies from state governments are able to charge more for tuition. Further, there may also be a correlation between the number of students who attend college and maintain a part or full-time job and the rate at which they borrow money. Within this decade, there has been a sociological shift where a large percent of students don’t get jobs in high school, and an even smaller proportion that contribute their earnings to family expenses. Once these students get into college, their families have less money to use to pay for tuition and other