Student Debt Exist When You're in Principles of Chemistry too.

It was April 18 at 7:00pm, when Michelle Orge, a Duchesne Scholar at Manhattanville College, crossed the quad to attend an event taking place in the Ophir Room of Reid Castle. The event was called “Occupy Student Debt”, mirroring a bigger event it would be promoting in a presentation about being conscious of student loans.

            By attending the event Michelle would be collecting Duchesne hours, which would go toward her completion of her service hours that would qualify her to receive a scholarship. With the promise of refreshments and a presentation topic that would concern almost any college student, Michelle was amongst many students that attended the event.

Robert Gilmore, Director of Financial Aid at Manhattanville, began the presentation with his speech that talked about how the generation in college now has more hope than the previous generations that attended college because of all the options students have now for paying their loans and working with their debt. However, students need to be made aware of their options as well as how important it is to be aware of their loans so that they will be able to manage paying them after graduation.

The event was held to bring light to the concern that college students tend to forget about their student loan accumulation while in college. It’s a high reality that with the way the job market is now students won’t be making enough money to handle the amount of loans they have, especially considering the high interest added to them. “They wanted students to understand the severity of this issue.” Michelle summarized.

A speaker at the event, Sarah Jaffe, discussed her predicament with Student Loan debt. She majored in English, and received a Master’s Degree in Journalism. Now, ten years later she makes about $45,000 a year and living in New York City she isn’t making enough to pay off her student loans which have now reached about $15,000, and still collecting interest. “The only advice I could give students, I would have given before they started college. And that would have been to go to a public college”, She said at the end of her speech.

Robert Oxford, another speaker on the panel, promoted an event that’s happening on April 25^th, entitled “Occupy Student Debt”, where people are gathering at Union Square in Manhattan, to bring attention to the fact that student loan interest rates will go up to 6.8% by midsummer. “They will be toasting to wall street’s success”, Oxford said, giving some satire to the issue of student debt.

-          Alexa Montalvo