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Students facing budget cuts and growing debt, risk losing out on education.

Remember when students only worried about starving? Now, some of us are forced to cut out more than just food. We have to work more and/or jump head first into a big fat vat of boiling debt. Each year proves harder and harder for students to receive an education due to an increase in fees and a higher cost of living.

We are in a constant struggle trying to balance work, studies and the occasional party; we find ourselves with no money and no time.

This year students have protested Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts and now many students at community colleges have another hurdle to conquer in the student loan sect.

Multiple major banks have stopped offering federal student loans to those at community colleges because students usually borrow less (averaging $3,200 per year) and the profit is just not there.

They are still available at larger four-year universities, though. So there are no worries there. For us, loans are plentiful. A student with a small loan will pay less interest and can pay it back faster; therefore the banks make more money when they lend more money to a student at a school that has high tuition.

The credit crisis has affected many lenders and borrowers, but shouldn’t students be an exception? An uneducated community is a larger crisis and this practice of selective lending will make it even harder for a specific group of students to get an education. We will, thus, see bright deserving students forced to drop out or take a semester off. Some new potential students might not even apply at all.

Community college has become a steppingstone for many students who are trying to receive a higher education without stockpiling a ton of debt. A majority of students who attend a two-year college are typically older with an average age of 29, have parents with lower levels of education and are likely to interrupt their enrollment in the first year, according to Community College Survey of Student Engagement.

With the further hardship students face obtaining a loan, we can assume that more and more students in community college will not reach their goals of graduating and remain like their parents, with a low level of education.

Thirty nine percent of students enrolled in community college are the first person in their family to attempt a higher education, 11 percent receive federal loans, more than half of the students are women and the majority of black and Latino undergraduate students are enrolled in a community college, according to the American Association of Community Colleges website.

Students who borrow are advised to stick with the same lender throughout their college career because switching can make it easier for a student to lose track of her of his payments and default. Students who can no longer borrow money from their previous lender may be forced to switch to a different lender.

It seems that to get the funds needed for an education, accumulating debt is a requirement. But that is exactly what this nation does not need, more people in debt. We don’t need a larger population of un-educated people, either.

Not all lenders are running away from community college borrowers, though. National lenders Sallie Mae and Nelnet will continue to offer federal loans to students in any system, according to The New York Times.

The increased need for student loans further points to the need for change in funding our educational system. A continued pressure on the outside communities is essential to helping everyone realize the importance of education. In turn we can start working together to make changes.

Colleges came together across this state and across systems to fight the governor’s budget cuts and we should do the same now. What affects one college affects them all, and we need to stand together to fight for our future and the next student’s future.

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