Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

CHAKRAVARTI: Prioritize Students, Alleviate Debt

CHAKRAVARTI%3A+Prioritize+Students%2C+Alleviate+Debt

President Biden’s administration announced last year that it would cancel up to $400 billion of student loans. There have been several U.S. Supreme Court hearings on the subject this month, but conservative justices appeared skeptical of President Biden’s power to cancel student debt. 

This February, hundreds of protestors, mainly college students, gathered outside the Supreme Court to encourage the conservative justices to support President Biden’s student loan cancellation efforts. Student loan debt is a major issue for college students around the country, as 43.5 million Americans have federal student loans as of 2022. At Georgetown University, approximately 24% of students receive federal student loans. 

While there is a significant discourse on the impacts of student loan debt on academic performance, career performance and the overall health of the economy, there is less of a focus on the impact of accumulating debt on a student’s mental health and well-being.

The fear of incurring student loan debt can emerge early in one’s undergraduate years, especially for low-income students who have to take out a significant amount of student loans. Thus, it is important for Georgetown to support the well-being of these students — and work toward mitigating the burden of student loans.

The cost of attending universities and college in the United States has consistently risen for the past two decades. In fact, Georgetown’s tuition will rise by 4.9% this upcoming semester. With this growth, the levels of student loan debt will continue to increase, as will the subsequent mental health impacts that borrowers face. 

A 2,000-person study conducted by an online education program called ELVTR found that 54% of students believe that their mental health struggles are associated with their college debt. The study cited reports of anxiety, depression, panic attacks and insomnia as impacts of student loan debt. 

At Georgetown University, the average federal loan debt among borrowers who completed their undergraduate degree in 2021 was $27,120. The national average was around $37,113

While Georgetown University’s student loan debt is fortunately lower than the national average debt, it is still a significant amount of money that can have long-term consequences on future career and living prospects. 

The taboo associated with student loan debt creates mental health challenges for borrowers, according to the American Psychological Association. There may be a certain degree of shame or guilt associated with accumulating debt, which causes students to suppress their emotions and ability to ask for help. 

This shame and guilt heightens feelings of stress, anxiety, depression and isolation — and even leads to worsened physical ailments. A long-term study of 4,200 Americans conducted by the University of Colorado Denver found that people with student debt in their 30s and 40s had higher cardiovascular risk scores.

Real solutions are required to tackle the issue of student loan debt. The problem cannot simply be addressed through therapy. Financial stress needs to be mitigated early on at the institutional level by taking steps to phase out student loans so that students are not reliant on them.

Georgetown should continue reaching out to its alumni base to support programs such as the Georgetown Scholars Program (GSP), which supports low-income and often first-generation students through grants and financial aid packages. Other such programs should be developed further and include counseling services as well so that students who do have to take out loans are supported during their undergraduate years. Additionally, Georgetown must reform its Office of Student Financial Services to make its services and methods more transparent and direct students to organizations such as the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union (GUASFCU) to explore the option of low-interest private loans.

Institutional support should come in terms of openly guiding students towards resources offered by GUASFCU, GSP and the Office of Student Financial Services, but also in offering mental health counseling services for students as they deal with financial stresses and insecurities. 

As President Biden continues to push for bipartisan support on student loan cancellation at the federal level, it is imperative that universities support students so that they can focus on their academic, extracurricular and social lives, rather than living in the shadows of student loan debt and its subsequent mental health challenges. 

Priyasha Chakravarti is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. Mental Health Messages is published every third Friday.

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