The interest rates on student loans, specifically private loans, are crippling to those who have furthered their education. The main concern should be to force colleges to lower tuition rates so that it can be more affordable and less loans need to be taken out. But for those of us who have already finished college and are working in the career field that we chose, paying 8-9% interest on private loans makes it almost impossible to make any kind of dent in the principle owed. Paying upwards of $800 per month in loans barely covers the interest, how is any American who chose to further their education, and could only do so with taking out loans, supposed to get ahead or feel accomplished for doing so when it feels they are stuck with astronomical debt for many years to come?
If the interest rate on credit cards is of importance, which usually is due to a person’s personal choice, then student loan interest rates absolutely need to be changed and lowered to an affordable rate. It needs to be halved, possibly even quartered. These big loan companies take hundreds of thousands of dollars from people who chose to get an education. I will end up paying over triple what my initial tuition costed to begin with, due to the interest accumulation. They also then penalize those who try to pay their loans off in full with a lump sum of money.
There has to be a better way. There is no reward or incentive for getting an education right now in America, unless you are someone who earned free tuition somehow, or have a family monetary means of paying along the way. Most Americans do not have that.