Is College Really Worth the Stress of Student Loans?

I wrote this feature piece for my Fall 2018 Feature Writing course at Salve. We were to choose a current “trend” or “issue” and I chose student loans. Personally, I am dealing with them and know others are as well. After interviewing students who have recently graduated and are currently dealing with debt and an admissions counselor at Salve Regina, I gathered information and wrote this piece.

By Lauren O’Neil

70% of college graduates will owe an average of $37,172 in student debt after school. That is about the same as a downpayment on a home. Student loans are something that almost everyone has to deal with if they decide to attend college. Only a few are lucky enough to receive a full ride to a college or university. The decision to go to college is so important: getting a degree will help you both figure out what you want to do with your life, as well as give you life skills. The skills that students learn while away at college are key to succeeding in life. Learning to live with others, meeting new people, and discovering new ways to learn are all different aspects of the college life, and they all contribute to the real-world experience. High school students are stuck with a big decision at a young age: where are they going to go, what are they going to do, and how much are they willing to spend? There is a certain amount of stress that comes with choosing where to go for the next four years of one’s life, and the pressure of student loans can be even worse. Is it really worth it to spend so much on a college experience?

I spoke with Tenley Sodeur, an admissions counselor at Salve Regina University to get a professional point of view. Her job is to visit high schools around New England and get students to think about applying to Salve, as well as reviewing all applications and deciding who will be a part of the newest freshman class. I asked her if she believes that high school students, most of those who do not have a great concept of money, should be the deciding factor on where they go to college. I know that when I was in high school, I had no idea how much money I was going to be spending on student loans. I had the choice of a few different state schools and private schools. I knew I wanted a good education that would take me far in my career, but I just did not know from where. I went along with what my parents were telling me, and ultimately chose Salve Regina because I knew I would be happiest here. Although Salve Regina is expensive, the environment and campus attitude has made my experience so great. Tenley thinks that “students should still have the right to decide where they want to go, but still understanding the concept of paying student loans is what is important. We try to provide students with as much liberty to make their own decision as possible.” Salve Regina University provides students with the correct information about how much they will be spending, and how much of that is going to be paid through student loans after graduation. Salve also tries to be as transparent as possible with financial information. They let you know exactly what you should expect, and offer advice if Salve may not be the right choice for your financial situation. The Office of Financial Aid always has someone available to speak to if you are having trouble figuring out a good payment plan, or if you just want to learn more about different options that the school has for financial aid.

Students should choose a school where they know they will be most comfortable. Jackie Bletzer agrees. She graduated from Suffolk University with a degree in Broadcast Journalism in 2017. Jackie just recently landed a job doing what she loves, broadcast journalism. A monthly payment of over $900 in student loans has put Jackie in a difficult position, though. She is stuck paying so much to student loans that she can “barely afford” to keep the job she has. Living in Boston requires a high rent price, and a high living price. Jackie loves her job, but the cost of living in Boston and her student loans have made her realize that her dream job may not pay well enough to get her through. Although she really loved her college experience, Jackie says, “I do wish that I had known back when I was choosing between schools what my loans would be like… I looked at a few state schools, but didn’t like them nearly as much as I liked Suffolk. I based my decision on where I believed I would be happiest at.” Happiness is so important, because if you end up going to a school just based on the financial aspect, you may not be happiest there, and would it really be worth it?

Is college really worth how much it costs? In The Narrative and Rhetoric of Student Debt, the author writes that, “Higher education is a personal, private ‘investment’ that must be ‘worth it’ to the student.” College is so important, and is definitely an investment. Tenley, the Salve admissions counselor, made a good point when she said, “I like to remind students that this is ultimately like you’re investing in a house. The cost of a typical house is what your four years will shape up to be.” That makes a lot of sense, and really puts the college experience into perspective. People buy houses because they want something that will last them a long time, well into their life. A college experience should do the same. It should be something that you will keep with you forever, whether it is what you learned in your classes or whatever life skills you learned while being away at college. Emily Bertolami, a recent graduate from Merrimack College feels the same way. She says, “If the school has the right program and the right career path you know you want to go into, I think it is definitely worth it to spend more and get your money’s worth of a quality education.” But what if you end up doing something completely different than what you thought you were going to do?

A factor that people may not think about when making the college decision is that a lot of people end up with jobs that had nothing to do with their college major. The main question here is: if you end up doing something completely unrelated to your degree, is it really worth it to spend such a high amount of money? By even attending college and taking courses, you are learning so much. Tenley Sodeur had this happen to her. She graduated from Plymouth State University with a degree in Meteorology, but ultimately decided that career path was not for her. She said, “I’m still a math and science nerd to this day, and I loved my major, but I started to think about what I really wanted to do with a major in meteorology. I didn’t see myself going into broadcast, so I was left thinking: what am I going to do?” Since Tenley had spent time in college working for the admissions office as a tour guide, she figured she would try something new. Completely turning around, Tenley became an admissions counselor at Salve Regina and is now working on completing her MBA. When talking about this decision and whether or not it was still worth it to spend so much on a degree she was not using, Tenley said, “I don’t think an education is ever wasted.” I agree with this. General education classes are so important, and the experiences of taking those classes provide students with different life skills.

So, the big question is: is college really worth the stress of student loans? Over 44 million Americans owe $1.5 trillion in student debt. This number is the highest it has ever been. You are on the same boat as almost everyone else if you decide to attend a particularly more expensive college. I am on my way to joining this growing number of recent grads who are dealing with debt, but it will be worth it in the end. Students are given such a big opportunity that a lot of people may not have. College is important, and although extremely expensive (probably too expensive), it allows students to grow and learn in new ways that will help them in their careers down the line. From admission counselors to recent grads, everyone is dealing with student loans, and you should not let that get in the way of a good education. Tenley, Jackie and Emily all believe that a college education is worth the stress of student debt, if you have the means of paying it off (like a well-paying job in a career that you love). There are ways of dealing with debt, like loans, scholarships, and forgiveness programs that can help you get out of debt, faster. Every student is different and has different experiences, but the price of a college education should not deter you from going and getting an education that you believe will help excel both your career and your life skills. If you want to learn something, learn it. The cost of learning should not get in the way of getting what you deserve.

The Break-In

This is a story I wrote for my Fall 2018 Feature Writing course. After interviewing and observing my subject, Salve Regina senior Susan Phillips, I wrote this story detailing her experience with a home invasion.

By Lauren O’Neil

As we’re sitting in her kitchen, only a few feet away from where the event occurred, Susan, tells me what happened to her only a short while ago. Awoken at 1 am by screams and a slamming door from her roommates, Susan thought she was dreaming. Hearing her roommates Andrea and Amy yelling back and forth, she remembers opening her door, confused, asking what was going on. “There’s someone in the house!” is the response she got.

Susan Phillips, 21, is a senior at Salve Regina University, and lives with her three friends, Andrea, Amy, and Megan. Early on in the morning of Tuesday, September 25th, a man broke into Susan’s home while she and two of her roommates were home. After hearing loud footsteps and another door slam only a few moments earlier, Susan gathered with Andrea and Amy in the upstairs hallway in a panic. “We had no idea what was going on but we knew something was wrong. I checked my Find My Friends app to see where Megan was,” said Susan. Seeing that Megan’s location was no longer in the house, Amy nervously announced that she was going to call the police. On the phone with the police, all three girls went downstairs to see if anyone was there. “We saw that the sliding door in the back was opened, and we realized that someone had actually been in the house,” said Susan.

Her roommate Megan came home around 1 am to find the front door left open, and the intruder at the top of the stairs. After spotting him, she yelled to her roommates, telling them to get out, then ran back out through the front door. The intruder followed her, running after her, but turned and went the other way at the end of the street. A camera across the street caught Megan and the intruder running out of the house. He was a few seconds behind her. According to Susan, the camera captured the man running in the opposite direction of Megan, who was already on her phone, calling 9-1-1. Immediately, Megan called the police and was quickly on her way back home with a few officers.

Once Megan was back in the house with the police, she told her roommates what had happened only a few minutes earlier. Susan recalls seeing Megan visibly shaken, and tells me what Megan told her. “When she walked in around 1 am, the front door was ajar.” Hitting her hands on the table, Susan mimics the sound of footsteps. “She heard someone walking around upstairs, but was confused because she knew we were all in bed, asleep.” I could tell that Susan was getting visibly nervous, rubbing her neck as she told her friend’s side of the story. “After calling out to us to ask if we were awake, Megan turned to go up the stairs and stopped. There was a man at the top of the stairs dressed in all black,” said Susan. “At this point, Andrea, Amy and I were all still upstairs in our rooms. We woke up to Megan yelling ‘guys, get out, there’s someone in the house’ and the door slamming.”

“The police had a lot of questions,” said Susan. Megan, who had just caught her breath, had to explain the entire situation in detail to everyone in the room. The officers were asking questions like, “Was the door locked? Did you know anyone who would want to do this to you? Would any of your friends play a prank on you for some reason?” Susan told me, “None of our friends would do this to us. This isn’t some sort of joke. Nobody would go this far to prank us.” A friend would never do something like this. Megan revealed to the police that her bedroom door, the one that leads out to the backyard, was unlocked that night. It had a tricky lock and she used it to come in the house when she came home from class for easier access to her room. “The police knew right away that the sliding door in Megan’s room was how the intruder entered the house,” says Susan. “That night, Megan had to give a witness statement to the police because she was the one who actually saw the man. We were here for four or five hours with the police while they were investigating,” says Susan. “They dusted for fingerprints, looked for footprints, and just checked around the house to see if anything was out of the ordinary or stolen,” recalls Susan. After a couple hours of investigating and questioning, the police left, and the four girls got picked up by Megan’s parents to go sleep safely at their house. They stayed there for a few days while the police were going in an out of their off-campus house. The girls finally returned back to their house after about six days.

The police search revealed that nothing from the house was stolen. That reveals an even bigger question. If the intruder was not there to steal, what were his intentions? “Thankfully Megan just happened to come home at the right time,” said Susan, “I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.”

As I am interviewing Susan now, it is a few weeks later. She is still shaken up, for good reason, and it shows in the way she speaks about the break in. Her hands are constantly doing something, either pulling at her shirt or rubbing her neck. She is visibly anxious as she recalls what happened in her home only a little while back. Walking around the house, Susan shows me where the intruder entered the house, through the sliding door in Megan’s room. She shows me the two other doors that he left propped open for an escape route. Looking around, I can see the scene play out. The intruder comes through the back door, goes up the stairs and into the hallway where the three upstairs bedrooms are. Megan comes home, notices the door cracked open, and yells to her roommates. A few seconds later, she hears footsteps and sees a tall man, dressed in all black, at the top of the stairs. Turning around, she runs out the door and onto the street with the man on her heels. As soon as she takes her phone out to call the police, he turns and runs in the opposite direction, clearly trying to get away as quickly as possible. As we walk around the house, Susan is telling me exactly what happened, in as much detail as possible. “I want to show you how quickly this all happened. It was only a few minutes from the time I woke up to screams until the police were here,” says Susan, “We were so lucky that Megan came home when she did.”

After the break-in, Susan and her roommates wanted to spread the word to Salve Regina faculty. Susan said, “the next day, we went around Salve and talked to different administrators. We talked to Michael Caruolo, Malcolm Smith, Barbara LoMonaco, and other staff members, telling them what happened.” Talking to the head of security at Salve put the girls’ minds a little more at rest, because he could now coordinate with Newport Police. Later that day, “we went to the police station, all four of us, and Andrea, Amy and I had to give our witness statements as well,” said Susan.

The police patrolled the house for a few days after the break in, to make sure the suspect did not return. The only update that the girls have received thus far from Newport police is that the camera that caught the man running out of the house after Megan, was not helpful. “We actually haven’t heard anything in about a week and a half since it happened, which is kind of a let down,” says Susan. A couple days after the break in, once the police were done combing through the house, Susan’s father drove up from New Jersey to install a new security system, by SimpliSafe. Motion detectors and cameras monitor the house, and will alert the girls if there is something wrong. “We are also taking a lot of precautions that we didn’t before. We all bought pepper spray, personal alarm systems, and we are using the ‘Buddy System’ a lot more now,” says Susan, “we want to make sure that we are safe at all times, something like this really makes you think more about everything you do.”