Life and Debt in the University Essay

Incurring debts while studying is never a pleasant experience. However, today’s increasing tuition and school fees, coupled with rising costs of living, have made indebtedness inevitable for many students. Although there are students who get heavily indebted from living frivolous lifestyles, most of the students I know usually had valid reasons of being compelled to avail of loans such as sickness and financial difficulties in their families. Pursuing higher education also meant independence for most students, and while some continued receiving financial support from their families, there are also those who chose to be completely on their own. Having to live independently and support myself, I usually had to take out a tuition loan during enrollment since I could not afford to pay school fees outright. Unfortunately, a debt is not something you enjoy having—or worse, accumulating—and it can have a tremendous effect on one’s well-being. Unless a student wants to spend his or her university life worrying about increasing debts, he or she must learn to manage his or her finances early on.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Indeed, it seems that debts have become a normal part of being a student. Whether a student likes it or not, soaring school fees and skyrocketing costs of living have made debts an inevitable reality. I think most of us have even become comfortable with the thought that we can take out loans from numerous sources like the university loan board, the bank, or even from personal contacts when it becomes necessary, such as when poor students like us run out of money for the rent and other personal needs. Getting into debt under such situations is understandable, but I do know some students who get cash-strapped from living beyond their means and are unnecessarily pushed into debt by their foolishness. Thus, a student should think first about the ways in which he or she will pay for her future debts before he or she starts having grand spending plans for that newly-acquired student credit card.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   On the other hand, students should know that getting into debt is the easy part. Getting out of it would be the difficult part and would certainly add to the stress of one’s university life. It is not as if the experience of a student who is neck-deep in debt would be different from the experience of other people in similar situations. Financial worries, in my opinion, may seem to be easy to solve but they can significantly distract a student from his or her academic responsibilities. I remember, for instance, being burdened by thinking so much about how I was going to pay off the tuition loan last semester that I often forgot my goal of getting good grades. Consequently, worrying about debts can also affect the psychosocial well-being of a student, sometimes even leading to major issues such as depression. Debts can compound other problems that a student may be experiencing, such as alienation from more well-off classmates and friends. There were times that I felt so bitter with my financial situation that I thought of dropping out from my studies and taking up a full-time job instead. Fortunately I had the support of encouraging friends who were either in similar situations or had gone through the same things before and we collectively held on to the belief and determination that we will somehow get over our problems. Thus, it was from these often painful and bitter experiences that I learned the plain and simple truth about debts and in the process of trying to maintain my sanity developed several coping mechanisms to manage debts. For instance, some of us tend to overlook the fact that debts do come with an additional interest on top of the principal and wait until the dreaded collection letter or notice comes instead of trying to settle debt obligations as early as possible. Paying off debts even in small increments saves us a lot of money in the long run since we avoid incurring more penalties. In the same manner, a student should avoid getting into more debts by spending according to a planned budget and within his or her allowance or income limit. A part-time employment can also be helpful in these times as a source of extra income for paying off one’s debts. In the end, there are times when getting into debt is inevitable, especially for students, but it can be an important learning experience in managing one’s finances.