Research Blog #8 Case

I have found dozens of cases to support my argument. The website "studenetdebtcrisis.org" has been a very useful resource. Below is an excerpt from one of my main cases from 2016:

"I went to college because my high school was a college-prep school. What else was there to do after high school? Go to college. That was my option. I was never informed of other options or careers that didn't need a college degree. I wasn't prepared for a community college to offset some of the cost while I made up my mind. So I ended up a music performance major (because I can be anything I want to be!) and a private 4 year college. Thankfully, I wised up and left before graduation; however, I still have 40,000 in student loan debt... one of these loans is over 20,000 on a private loan with a 8.6% interest rate." 

Gina chose her major based on her passion for music performance and incurred thousands of dollars in debt. This is a common theme among Generation Me college students that are unaware of the financial consequences of their choice of major. Rising tuition costs should cause students to carefully choose their major by measuring their projected earnings against their projected debt.

Research Blog #7 Frame

Academic Frame: 

My academic frame is based off of the external and internal factors that influence a student's choice of college major. The main external factor being the job market for a certain degree, which can be measured using different methods of analysis. The main internal factor being self-interests or passions.

While the privatization of higher education continues to increase the cost of college tuition, choosing a practical college major becomes more and more important. In order to prevent themselves from falling victim to student loan debt, Generation Me will need to shake the bad habit of making decisions based solely on personal interest and begin to focus their attention on the external factors when choosing their major. It is important that high schools and universities educate students and allow them to make informed decisions when deciding their future.

The article, "Balancing Passion and Practicality: The Role of Debt and Major on Students' Financial Outcomes", offers a framework for making informed college major decisions. In my paper, I will use their "debt-to-income" tool as an example of how students should be choosing their major based on the job market.  In the article, researchers of higher education in Texas use this tool to measure median income of college degrees against the debt that the average student must accumulate in order to achieve this degree. Using this tool, or a similar method of analysis, could save thousands of college students from falling victim to student loan debt.

Unfortunately, research shows that today's college students, Generation Me, are more likely to make decisions based on their own self-interest. Both the article, "Generation Me: Influences of A Students' College Major Choice", and the book, "Generation Me: Why Today's young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever", will be useful for explaining how today's college students are making decisions.

Research Blog #6 Visual

This is a graphical representation of the results of a survey conducted in 2012 at nine public universities. In the survey, researchers asked roughly 1800 students who influenced two of their biggest decisions: which college to attend and what to major in while attending college. As you can see parental influence was significant in determining which college to attend. When students were asked who influenced their major, the most common answer was,  "myself".  In my mind, what makes these results so compelling is that "myself" was not actually  an option on the survey.  Students who answered "Other" were given an open ended section to specify what they meant. Of the nearly 1800 students surveyed, 488 of them answered "Other" and then answered "Myself."

While the privatization of higher education causes tuition to rapidly increase, one would expect external factors, such as "Career or Earnings Goals", to be more influential in determining a student's college major choice. However, the results of this study suggest that internal factors, such as personal interest, are the most influential factors.