For many citizens, the American Dream means hard work will bring about success in your career. You can comfortably buy your own home, care and provide for your family without any major stresses looming overhead. However, recently many are finding that to get to that successful career and comfortable life takes more than just hard work, it takes a college degree. As the job market becomes increasingly competitive, many companies make having a Bachelor’s degree a minimum requirement forcing many job seekers to go back to school and invest in their education. Just as the job market has changed in the past 60 years so has the cost of a college degree. Tuition rates have risen 500% since 1985 and does not show any signs of decreasing any time soon. This has made it difficult for many students to even afford finishing their education and many must look to students loans to help finance their time in school. Grads often find themselves in a difficult situation as they face large amounts of debt from student loans and unemployment in a slow recovering job market.
While college can be a huge investment it can also be a worthwhile one as even today college degree holders earn significantly more than those without. Yet many students forget to look into the immediate costs of college and immediately apply for loans before looking into other forms of financial aid such as grants or scholarships. To get a better sense of just how much a college degree can cost you take a look at this infographic by Consolidated Credit about the history of student loan debt.
