Higher Education in the USA: A Basic Right with a Premium

Education is universally regarded as a basic right provided by a country to its citizens. How much of this basic right should a citizen get for free, varies from one country to another. For example, Bangladesh provides free education to everyone as far as a student can go, from grade one to post-graduate, whereas in the most developed country USA, it stopes after high school.

Majority of high school graduates in the US who wish to go to a four year college for higher education do so often without realizing that the reality will be different after college than the one they live in now. Students enter college with a mind full of dreams and exit to a world full of student loans which don’t go away soon. After high school, education is no longer regarded as a basic right given for free, it’s a basic right with a high premium, and not for all. In the USA, as of last year millions of students owe over 1.6 trillion dollars of student loans. A tiny portion of it is mine.

Like many kids in Bangladesh, my dream was also to become an engineer. I’d followed that dream to a public engineering university in 2006. As I said earlier, Public education in Bangladesh is free. If I were to stay and complete the degree there, the total cost would’ve been a tiny fraction of what I’d spent at Penn State.

During my early days in the US in 2007-8, I shared my interests about attending a college. I sought information from other immigrants like me many of whom I worked with at a minimum wage serving American consumer with hot coffee, donuts, gasoline, etc. I wasn’t aware of the college costs but they were, and they knew about my financial uncertainties and inabilities in English language, both of which they thought were essential for success in college, and in retrospect, I do agree with them. Everyone except one or two people, who heard my plan warned me against it and some even used insulting language for being too ambitious. Too ambitious only because I was from a “third” world country with no smartness and supposed to remain low. Long story short, I stayed undeterred against all negative advises, and admitted to Penn State in 2010.

Now comes the BIG question, where is the money and how much?

Prior to Penn State while attending a community college for one and a half years, I had already accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in loans. As a full time student I was allowed to borrow up to the maximum amount each semester. The financial aid office gladly certified all loans without regarding my actual needs as if the money was free to me. There is something called responsible borrowing which I wasn’t aware of nor was I told by anyone in college, so I borrowed more than what I needed with a hope that I’ll be able to pay off one day.

The borrowing spree continued and increased while at Penn State for four years. Even though Penn State is a public university, it’s still not cheap and much more expensive than the community college I attended earlier. The amount of financial aid offered to a student varies but the maximum amount is around five and a half thousand dollars each semester. This is free money given as grant but only covers a portion of the total bill. Without going into details, I managed to graduate with a bachelor’s degree and a loan of $100,000. I worked part time to cover my personal costs. This money I borrowed not because I wanted but because I needed. I needed to pay for tuition and fees, books, housing, and meals. If there were no tuition, I would’ve been able to pay majority of other costs from my part time job and grants.

This’s a scenario too common to millions of students from all backgrounds. Nobody I knew came to class without borrowing money first. Some borrowed from parents, some from government and private banks, and some like me borrowed from everywhere except parents. Post-high school education is so expensive that even government is like-can’t afford to provide it for free. Students are completely on their own except a lucky few with really rich parents.

I don’t entirely regret borrowing a huge amount of money to get a degree when I had no other way but knowing what I know now, I would’ve made some choices differently. I also don’t regret because Penn State gave me a new identity, set up my roots in this new land, and created a bar for future generations sprouting from me.