This is a part in a series of articles covering the issue of student loans. In this piece, the Ghostwriter investigated how information about student loans is distributed to students. For more articles, see Student Loans: An Investigative Report

By Ethan Walshe
Editor-in-Chief

Student loans have become a national issue, there is no denying that fact.The reality is that there has been a growing trend toward taking out loans to meet the rising costs of college tuitions, and even an affluent community like Westford is not immune to the trend. Thus students are graduating with loan debt with increasing frequency.

“It’s definitely a problem,” said Guidance Counselor and Financial Aid Liaison Heidi Hider. “[That] is why [the guidance department] is trying more and more to make resources available so people really can think.”

While the WA Guidance Department is at the forefront of helping students decide which college is the best fit and helping them through the application process, they encounter a tough situation when it comes to helping a student consider financial aid options.

By law, one must be a licensed financial advisor to give in depth advice regarding student loans and a families finances. The fact of the matter is that no such person exists in the guidance department.

“We could give general information [about student loans] but it gets tricky because we are not financial advisors, we don’t pretend to be. We don’t have specific qualifications to make specific recommendations,” said Hider.

As such, Guidance makes the effort to direct students and their families to a number of useful resources to provide them with the necessary information to make educated decisions regarding college planning. Organizations such as the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority (MEFA) are utilized to keep families informed.

But of course, even with multitudes of information available, student loans and financing can often be overlooked as essential components in the college decision process.

Scott Cruikshank is a psychology teacher at Westford Academy and was also a member of the Class of 2005. After graduation, he attended Duke University and had to take out some student loans in order to meet the costs of tuition.

“To be honest, I don’t think I really understood what I was doing, because it was ‘fill out this form online, do this, … here is a loan.’ It didn’t really dawn on me because a lot of it wasn’t coming out of my pocket,” said Cruikshank.

Cruikshank also noted that when he took out this loan, often times he did not actually handle the money. It would transferred directly to the University from the bank in question. This kind of disconnect can often create a mindset wherein the loan ceases to be a real thing. Instead, it has become an entity separated from the payment process.

Cruikshank’s experience is not a unique one. Many people find that when they are applying to college that they have little to no knowledge of how the loan system works. The problem is that there is often times disagreement on how this information should be distributed.

Lena Mirisola is a member of the WA Class of 2013 and currently attends the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In order to pay for her education, she also has taken out loans that she will repay following graduation.

Similar to Cruikshank, Mirisola had little education on how loans worked before she took them out.

“There was nothing really gone over financially [about] loans or anything from [Westford Academy]. It was pretty much my mom doing a lot of it. I also didn’t know [much about loans]. The only way I started to know was that I was now responsible if I got mail from Wells-Fargo. I had to open it and read what it said about my loan and what kind of payments are due. There was really no help on the schools part,” said Mirisola.

Senior Olivia Peterson feels similarly.

“Honestly I had no idea how loans work. I only know what my plan might be because I’m the fourth child in my family to go through it. I don’t think I’ve learned anything through the school as far as loans go,” said Peterson.

So where does the responsibility toward educating students about student loans lie? There are numerous resources available from the Guidance Department about this issue but it seems that students are still unaware of the reality of the situation. Should colleges be more upfront with information about loans, or does that responsibility fall on the high school?

Bankruptcy practitioner and attorney David Keele believes that there needs to be more done about educating students on personal finance issues as well as student loan issues. Additionally, he believes that there needs to be an effort from governments to offer counseling about what kind of debt could be incurred and the ramifications from taking them.

However, this is not necessarily practical. What it really boils down to is that family finances are a family matter, according to Keele, Hider, and Cruikshank. Because every case can be so individual, it has become the job of the family to seek out education on student loans and how to go about both taking them out and paying them back.

“The burden is ultimately on the student and the family. In the end they are the ones borrowing that money. That’s personal responsibility…that’s your decision,” said Keele.

Cruikshank echoed Keele’s thoughts.

“Ultimately, I would say it’s the responsibility of the family, because if you’re going to take out the loan, you need to understand what’s behind it,” said Cruikshank.

He continued, “no one’s forcing you to take a loan. You don’t have to take out a loan to go to college … It’s not a requirement. Because it’s not a requirement I think you’d have a hard time justifying forcing a school, a college, a bank, a guidance department, to teach that whole process.”