When graduating student Alex Van walks at his commencement
ceremony this week, he will be walking with about $25,000 in loans
borrowed during his five years at UCLA.
Like many students across the University of California, Van has
been forced to take out more loans to adjust to recent fee hikes
brought on by the California budget crisis.
When most of this year’s graduating class entered UCLA,
they were paying about $3,700 per year. Now that figure has grown
to over $6,000.
The UC Board of Regents said they approved the fee increases in
order to maintain the quality of the university’s education.
But the additional costs also mean graduating students must begin
to think of how they will pay off their debts, which students say
in many cases affects their decisions after leaving the UC.
Though most students do graduate, even when faced with
increasing fees, many feel the need to forgo graduate school in
favor of getting a job after leaving UCLA.
And many of those who choose to get advanced degrees feel the
extra burden of knowing they will have to pay off even more money
as a graduate student.
Van, who plans to go to pharmacy school, where he will likely
take out more loans, said the knowledge that he will need to pay
off his debts gives him extra incentive to succeed after
graduation.
“I feel there is a big burden because I have to pay my
loans back. If I can’t finish pharmacy school, I still have
to pay it somehow. So it is also motivation for you to be
successful in life,” Van said.
For some graduating seniors, the reality of having to pay off
their loans has just sunk in.
Graduating senior Anjanita Mahadoo said she never felt the fee
increases impacted her until recently because they were always
covered under her financial aid package, which included subsidized
loans.
“You always get these little messages posted on MyUCLA,
but you just don’t think about it until you graduate and you
realize you have to start paying off your loans.” Mahadoo
said.
But Mahadoo does not just see these loans as a burden, but also
an investment, and having outstanding debts for education costs was
different from owing thousands of dollars in credit card bills.
For some, debt will likely influence their future choices.
Second-year applied mathematics student Kwong Sam estimates that
he has already taken out $12,000 in loans.
Sam added that sometimes he feels discouraged and almost wants
to “cut (his) losses now, quit school, and just start
working.”
While it is not unheard of for students to drop out of school
because of financial problems, it is usually not because of a lack
of resources, said Ronald Johnson, UCLA director of financial
aid.
Sometimes students choose not to take out loans because they do
not want to be in debt after graduating. Instead, they overextend
themselves, working and attending school simultaneously, and are
not able to keep up academically, Johnson said.
Financial aid is another option for students, but Johnson said
that even so there was a “gap between costs and available
funding” ““ and most students on financial aid have to
take out loans too.
As the UC Students Association president, the idea of the
financially struggling UC student is not new to Jennifer Lilla, who
sometimes hears stories of students working at two or three coffee
shops to pay for their education.
“Few of us have the luxury now of being just a
student,” Lilla said.
Anthony Pineda, a third-year student at UC Davis, does not have
the luxury of worrying only about his finals. As a father of two
children, Pineda needs to work and take out loans.
But Pineda said he will leave the UC next year with more than
just a long trail of debts ““ he will leave with a concern for
providing future students with access to affordable education.