Extra Credit- Review

America's Student Debt Crisis: Jessie's Story

https://youtu.be/PqzEcER8AJA

This video told the story of Jessie Suren, who is a first-generation college student in her family as her mother did not attend college. Jessie's mother mentioned that they wish that they had done more research before signing the student loans. I feel that this is where there is a difference that can be seen between the International Students from China and American students' family dynamics and culture. Chinese students have mentioned that they themselves did not do the research on which university and college they applied to but instead it was their parents that took care of that. The students just studied and took the exams multiple times to get their parents desired scores. While Jessie knew that just how important a college degree and that her family would not be able to support her financially. Meaning she needed to take out loans just to attend the university. This encompasses the concept of “enmeshed autonomy” by Caitlin Zaloom which the nature of attending a University and the financial burden of attending college imposes a paradox. As society has increasingly stressed the importance of attending university and the benefits of earning higher salaries. But in most cases, they failed to mention the financial burden that it will place on the families and educate those that will need financial assistance to afford this luxury. Jessie has mentioned that being told college degrees can improve one's earnings drastically from "$18,000 vs $35,000 a year seemed like a million dollars."Jessie had deferred and put her loans on forbearance to postpone payments but the interests never stopped accumulating.  While it is important that the student finds a college or university that offers them the best resources to pursue their careers but the financial aspects will then be placed heavily on the families. Caitlin Zaloom's concept of "nested silence", where the parents shield their child/children from the families' finance even if they are struggling to make ends meet, can also be found in Jessie's story. Jessie understood that being frugal is a good quality to have but didn't understand just how much the expenses cost. The same will apply to international students coming to the US for the first time. Most are shocked at just how expensive it is to eat out forcing them to learn to cook and buy groceries on their own. Not all international students are from wealthy households so many have to look for jobs but have limited choices as they are not allowed to find off-campus jobs.