Many seniors are about to graduate and pursue their goals. Many seniors will attend college next semester. With that, much money will go into tuition and other expenses. Many students’ families cannot fully pay for college expenses by themselves.

Student loans provide families with the money they need to get access to colleges. The major drawback is that they will probably be paying off their debt for the remained of their lives.

Science teacher Ryan Mandlove attended Wofford College and his experiences with student debt have been less than pleasant.

“I have a lot of debt that goes upwards of $40,000. It stinks,” Mandlove said. “The best advice I can give to future college students is to think about college like an investment. Do research on the school you want to go to and make sure that your desired career can support payments of student debt in the future. Also, make sure that you do plenty of research on forgiveness programs in the loan because they might become useful.”

According to the Financial Times, student debt has tripled in the last decade to about $1.2 trillion dollars. The rate of people who failed to make payments on their debt on time was 13.7% in 2011.

According to Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin, the reason for the explosion of student debt is because of decades of stagnant wage growth.

Senior Katie Bridgman considered student debt in her college selection process.

“My ultimate goal is to not have any student debt, unless my grades in college go bad and I lose my scholarships,” she said. “Also, going to an in-state school gives me access to state scholarships and lower tuition rates compared to out of state students.”

Senior Mark Malashevskyy chose to go for the more affordable option in Spartanburg Community College.

“I don’t want to worry about paying off student debt for the rest of my life. Going to a two year college is much less expensive and if I later chose that I want to go to a four year, I would have saved a lot of money,” Malashevskyy said.