{"id":7079,"date":"2025-06-01T00:56:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T00:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7079"},"modified":"2025-05-27T23:51:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T23:51:05","slug":"debt-without-a-degree-the-coming-college-completion-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7079","title":{"rendered":"Debt Without a Degree: The Coming College Completion Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Iyana Moore<\/p>\n<p>(Black PR Wire) Each May, we celebrate the students who beat the odds: those who pushed through systemic barriers, financial strain, and personal hardships to earn their degrees. But amid the pomp and circumstance, we must also confront a harsh reality:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/students\/academics\/2024\/04\/10\/study-half-students-started-never-finished-college#:~:text=Study%3A%20Nearly%2040%20Percent%20of,23%2C000%20students%20for%2012%20years.\">40% of students who start college never graduate<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and for them, the consequences are devastating.<\/p>\n<p>Students who don\u2019t complete a degree are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2019\/07\/09\/738985632\/these-are-the-people-struggling-the-most-to-pay-back-student-loans\">three times more likely to default on their student loans<\/a>. This isn\u2019t just an unfortunate statistic \u2013 it\u2019s part of a larger crisis, a systemic failure built into our higher education system. A system that promises opportunity, but too often delivers debt without a diploma. And the ones most likely to be caught in this cycle? Low-income students, first-generation students, and students of color.<\/p>\n<h3>A Promise Broken: How the Education System Traps Students<\/h3>\n<p>When the U.S. government and institutions across the country began pushing for greater access to higher education, they made a bold promise: \u201cGet a degree, and you\u2019ll earn a better life.\u201d For many, it\u2019s been a broken promise.<\/p>\n<p>As costs rise, the very resources that help students stay on track \u2013 affordable tuition, financial aid, academic advising, and on-campus jobs \u2013 are becoming harder to access. But instead of closing these gaps, some policymakers are pushing a budget proposal that would widen them even further.<\/p>\n<h3>The High Cost of a Reckless Budget<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/edtrust.org\/press-room\/congress-should-reject-great-american-heist-budget-plan\/\">EdTrust recently called out the House budget proposal<\/a>\u00a0for what it is: a plan that would steal opportunity from the most underserved communities in America by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Slashing Pell Grant eligibility for thousands of working students, student parents, and first-generation learners.<\/li>\n<li>Eliminating subsidized student loans, forcing students to accrue interest while still in school.<\/li>\n<li>Cutting federal support for education research and campus-based aid programs, weakening critical on-campus resources like paid internships and academic programs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These cuts would put higher education further out of reach for millions and ensure that even more students are left without the means to finish what they started.<\/p>\n<h3>The College Students We\u2019re Leaving Behind<\/h3>\n<p>While the federal government debates student loan forgiveness and repayment plans, far too little focus is placed on the root cause of this crisis: college completion. We cannot talk about ending the student debt crisis without addressing the barriers that keep students from finishing what they start.<\/p>\n<p>Students who leave school without a degree are stuck with the worst of both worlds \u2013burdened by debt but lacking the wage gains and mobility that a degree typically unlocks. And it\u2019s not just traditional college students who are being left behind.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.luminafoundation.org\/campaign\/todays-student\/\">34% of college students are 25 or older<\/a>, with many working full-time, raising families, or seeking short-term credentials through nontraditional pathways. These learners face the same systemic barriers as their younger peers, plus the added strain of balancing work, caregiving, and school. Yet, these students are often excluded from policies and supports designed for a traditional 18-year-old freshman \u2013 despite making up over a third of the college-going population.<\/p>\n<h3>It\u2019s Time to Prioritize College Completion<\/h3>\n<p>Without renewed investment in student success and retention, America\u2019s economic future \u2014 \u00a0one that depends on a skilled, educated, and diverse workforce \u2014 \u00a0is at stake. If we want to make higher education a true engine of equity and mobility, then completion \u2014\u00a0 not just access \u2013 must be the goal. Anything less is a betrayal of the promise we made to students. It\u2019s time for lawmakers to invest in the systems that help them finish.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Published without changes from BlackPRNewsWire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Iyana Moore (Black PR Wire) Each May, we celebrate the students who beat the odds: those who<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bprwire","category-press-release"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7081,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7079\/revisions\/7081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}