At a time when the cost of education and inflation are at all-time highs, many high school graduates are deciding to skip college. Fearing loan debt, students are considering taking up careers that don’t require a degree instead.
Eighteen-year-old Chris Shwarting says, “If I go into the trades, I can make money while I learn and then eventually maybe go to college after I make enough money here.”
Experts date this issue back to the start of the pandemic. Since then, the undergraduate student body has dropped by nearly 1.4 million students, according to a National Student Clearinghouse study.
President Biden is making efforts to tackle the loan debt crisis with his new student loan relief plan. Some, however, are not in favor of it. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says, “It’s very unfair, you know, to have a truck driver have to pay back a loan for somebody that got like a PhD in gender studies.”