The Public Interest Research Group released a report yesterday about rising student loan debt and its burden on graduates who want to pursue "socially important" careers, such as teaching and social work.
Luke Swarthout, associate for the State PIRG Higher Education Project, wrote the report and explained how loans are preventing undergraduates from pursuing much needed jobs.
In Virginia, 30 percent of public university graduates and nearly 50 percent of private university graduates will have "unmanageable" student debt if they become a teacher after school, Swarthout said. Those numbers are not much higher than the national average of 23 percent for public and 38 percent for private schools, he added.
"Unmanageable debt means that you can't repay your loans without significantly impacting your ability to pay for basic necessities," he said.
"In the whole list of states, [Virginia] is not outstanding as one of the worst or one of the best," said Rose Garr, PIRG mid-Atlantic field organizer.
The report was prompted by a variety of factors affecting undergraduate students, Garr said.
"Over the last decade we have seen tuition and fees at colleges go up drastically," Garr said. "We've also seen more and more students come out of college with more and more loan debt."
Today, two-thirds of students graduate college with an average loan debt of $20,000, whereas a decade ago, the number of students with debt was only around $10,000, according to Garr.
In January, Congress made a $12 billion budget cut in the student loan program, the biggest cut in the program's history.
One of the main concerns of undergraduate students today is their inability to repay their student loans after they graduate, Swarthout said.
"College is ultimately about opportunities and opening doors for students, whether academic or whether economic or whether occupational," Swarthout said. "By giving students such unbearable loans after college, it is undermining the opportunity that is so important in American higher education."
This report is an attempt to convince Congress to prioritize higher education, while at the same time ensuring that the people on the education committees are putting students first, Garr said.
Pell Grants, which provide financial aid to needy students, are very helpful but their use has not increased over the years, Garr said.
Garr said she hopes students will be more aware of such benefits from the government upon the publication of this report.
Garr recommended that students with loans who are still in college keep their ears open for any political opportunities to express their opinions. She added that graduates with debt are eligible for loan consolidation where the government buys the debt in order to reduce the interest rate.
"We're really looking to sound the alarm on nationwide student debt," Swarthout said.
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