Saddled with college debt

This article was a depressingly realistic view on paying for college. I wonder how much of this is still true today, but I think it would be naive to hope that things have changed. The author of this article was misled in her childhood when her parents told her that she could go to any college and be anything she wanted, because she would receive loans and financial aid. This really hit home for me, because I don't hear this stuff just from my parents, but from colleges themselves as well. Every college I have been to has told me that they do not see your financial situation until after you are accepted, and then you are guaranteed 100% of your needs covered. Whether this meant loans or grants (and most of the money was always supposed to be grants), it sounded like a nice deal. Plus, I always thought you could work through college if necessary. Basically, I was pretty convinced that even though it might be difficult, it was possible for just about anybody to afford college if they could get in.
Unfortunately, this article makes me question how true that is. The girl who wrote it claims to have gotten straight As and taken AP classes in high school. She wanted to go to a college in New England, and she took out loans and received, in addition to working up to four jobs in the same month throughout college. Yet when she graduated, she had over $100,000 in debt. That's an incredibly staggering number, since I believe that would be at least half the cost of college for most schools. Now she has to do 10 years of service to work of her debt. Maybe that's better than going to jail or whatever, but what is the point of college if you have to work for ten years before you're just out of debt? College is supposed to set you up for a career, and the whole idea of going to a better college, at least for many people, is to get a better education and ultimately make more money. Obviously, this girl now regrets not sticking to a much lower ranked college in her own state. Her better education certainly isn't getting her anywhere.
Most of this is a sad personal story, but at the end the author reveals why this piece is so timely. She is in favor of the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, and her purpose is to use her story to convince voters to agree. My guess is that people who read this article will be convinced. She appeals heavily to ethos, logos, and pathos in this article. It is fairly safe to assume, I think, that there are thousands of similar cases out there. People who see this article will no longer be able to say that it is easy to pay for college without getting into debt, and once they lose that argument, it is much harder to fight against the bill.

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