Research Blog #10: Final Abstract, Bibliography, and Link to Your Paper

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11peaBJErk3KN_kS6QHreHlFZ4OgSp5MgPEmQvl2Cfy0/edit?usp=sharing

Abstract

This paper sets out to prove that the privatization of higher education is creating a system of inequality that works to widen the gap between the income classes of college students by negatively affecting lower class students mentally, physically, and financially. Through my research, I found evidence of all of the above. There have been relationships found between student debt and financial stress, financial stress and mental health, and student mental health and student physical health. The evidence found goes to support the fact that students that need student loans (mostly lower class students) are being pushed down by the individual problem that stress has become, This essay promotes addressing the larger social problems that are causing this financial stress in lower class students.

Bibliography

Baum, Sandy, Jennifer Ma, and Board College. "Trends In College Pricing, 2013. Trends In

Higher Education Series." College Board (2013): ERIC. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.

Becker, Dana. "Does "Stress" Hide Deeper Social Problems?" Ideas Does Stress Hide Deeper

Social Problems Comments. N.p., 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2016

Becker, Dana. One Nation under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea. New York: Oxford

UP, 2013. Print.

Bennett, Doris, Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter. "The Impact of Financial Stress on

Academic Performance in College Economics Courses.”Academy of Educational

Leadership Journal 19.3 (2015): 25-30. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Cooke, Richard, Michael Barkham, Kerry Audin, Margaret Bradley, and John Davy. "Student

Debt and Its Relation to Student Mental Health." Journal of Further and Higher

Education 28.1 (2004): 53-66. Web.

Estroff Marano, Hara. "Crisis U." Psychology Today 48.5 (2015): 61-71 11p. CINAHL with Full

Text. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.

Laidley, Thomas M. "The Privatization of College Housing: Poverty, Affordability, and the US

Public University." Housing Policy Debate 24.4 (2014): 751-768.

Lim, HanNa, et al. "Financial stress, self-efficacy, and financial help-seeking behavior of college

students." Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning 25.2 (2014): 148-160.

Meister, Bob. "Debt and Taxes: Can the Financial Industry Save Public Universities?"

Representations. 1st ed. Vol. 116. N.p.: U of California, 2011. 128-55. The Humanities

and the Crisis of The Public University.JSTORE. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Richardson, Thomas, Peter Elliot, and Ronald Roberts. "The Relationship between Personal

Unsecured Debt and Mental and Physical Health: A Systematic Review and

Meta-analysis." The Relationship between Personal Unsecured Debt and Mental and

Physical Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review,

n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.

"Student Loan Statistics." - ACA International. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Walsemann, Katrina M., Gilbert C. Gee, and Danielle Gentile. "Sick Of Our Loans: Student

Borrowing And The Mental Health Of Young Adults In The United States." Social

Science & Medicine 124.(2015): 85-93. ScienceDirect. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Literature Review Blog #5

Becker, Dana. One Nation under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea. New York: Oxford

UP, 2013. Print.

Summary

This book details the concept of stress as an idea. Stress has become an individual issue: it has become a problem that individuals must work to solve themselves. Becker's book pushes readers to view stress as a product of larger social problems, and should be addressed in a larger scale. The author speaks to many aspects of society that enforce this privatized stress and the social problems that are behind it.

Author

"Dana Becker, PhD, is a professor of social work at Bryn Mawr College and author of One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea. Her previous books include Through the Looking Glass: Women and Borderline Personality Disorder and The Myth of Empowerment: Women and the Therapeutic Culture in America." -Time.com

Key Term

stressism- the concept that states that regular stress from life is an individual problem, rather than a larger social problem

Quotes

“the current belief that the tensions of contemporary life are primarily individual lifestyle problems to be solved through managing stress, as opposed to the belief that these tensions are linked to social forces and need to be resolved primarily through social and political means” (Becker, 24).

"the idea of equality as identical treatment for everyone depends on a sameness of social condition and a sameness of opportunity that simply don't exist" (Becker, 747).

Value

This book provides an essential idea to my argument. It shows that student debt stress is not each individual's problem but rather a societal problem that must be addressed.

Research Blog #9: Argument and Counter-Argument

My main argument, which is backed by most of my sources, is that the privatization of higher education, through the increase in the need for student loans, is creating a system that reproduces class inequality by negatively affecting lower class students mentally, physically, and financially. Most of my conclusion is based on the fact that students or students' families that have less money need more student loans in order to attend college. This increase in the need for student loans creates stress, which is then placed on the individual, rather than the system that reproduces this stress. This idea of stress privatization comes largely from Dana Becker's book, "One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea." This is a common underlying idea that persists throughout the paper. Most of my sources show that there are relationships between stress (specifically financial stress) and negative physical, mental, and financial affects on students and post students, that largely only affect students with student loans. 

My chief counter-argument comes from Cook, Barkham, Audin, Bradley, and Davey's study, Student Debt and Its Relation to Student Mental Health. This study, while providing evidence to support financially stressed students having lower grades, also showed that there is no relationship between anticipated debt and mental health. This is basically saying that the debt students will have over the course of their college experience does not affect their mental health. This part of the study goes against what I am trying to prove, but is ultimately defeated by the fact that higher class students, whom often have no student debt, have no student debt to worry about. There is only student debt stress when student debt is present.

Research Blog #8: Case

A study done by Doris Bennett, Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter of Jacksonville University titled, The Impact of Financial Stress on Academic Performance in College Economics Courses will be my main example in order to prove my thesis. The title of the article explains all you really need to know about the actual study for this blog's purposes. The summary of this study written at the end details many of the key ideas I wish to touch upon in my paper.

"This research establishes a statistically significant link between financial stress and academic performance. Students who were worried about paying for college averaged 4.5 percentage points lower in class grades than students who were not worried about paying for college. There was a 3.7 point difference in the course grade for students who weren’t able to afford to purchase the required textbooks. Students who stated that the financial stress affected their academic performance had course averages that were 6.6 points lower than those who were not financially stressed. It appears that certain groups of students were more affected by stress than others. A significantly higher proportion of the stressed students with lower scores were women, minorities, and first-generation college students, groups with below average rates of college attendance. Working more hours to meet financial obligations, they have less time to study, which has a negative impact on their academic performance. With lower grades, these financially stressed, often lower income, students are less likely to complete the college education that they need to improve their chances for a better future. The scope of the problem is even broader because students must repay large amounts of student debt, which can potentially have a negative impact on economic growth by hampering their ability to purchase big-ticket items." (Bennet et al.)

This study exemplifies the affects of the privatization of higher education, as well as the student loans it causes, on students- lower class students especially. 

"Working more hours to meet financial obligations, they have less time to study, which has a negative impact on their academic performance. With lower grades, these financially stressed, often lower income, students are less likely to complete the college education that they need to improve their chances for a better future." (Bennet et al.)

This idea that the writers put forward is an almost exact outline of what I want to prove in my paper. This case is going to be extremely useful, not only as a study to prove what I am arguing, but as a logically flowing argument that I can incorporate into the rest of my paper. 

Research Blog #7: Frame

I am not sure what theory, paradigm, or academic concept help me make sense of my paper. What I do have is information from many sources that supports my thesis. My bibliography consists of studies and research done that links stress, student loans, psychological functioning, physical health, and financial worries. These serve to prove my thesis that the privatization of higher education is essentially further separating the upper class from the middle and lower class, through bot financial methods, as well as psychological ones. The frame of my paper intends to go through the sources and explain how each respective study (with some working together) attributes to the degradation of the lower classes and promotion of the higher class. Essentially, the privatization of higher education is separating the classes through the increasing need for student loans.

Research Blog #6: Visual

This graph was taken from the Walsemann, Gee, and Gentile article titled, Sick of Our Loans: Student borrowing and the mental health of young adults in the United States. This graph was created by them using data collected by their study in order to show the relationship between predicted psychological functioning and amount of student loans, while also keeping in mind the parental net worth. While writing the first rough draft of my paper, I focused on how the privatization of higher education was generally affecting students, but through further reading and analysis of my sources, along with discussing my paper with Professor Geoller, I saw a different general thesis for my paper. The financial class of a student was something discussed in almost all of my sources, but I failed to include this heavily in my paper. This graph, along with a lot of other information I have found, is steering the direction of my paper more towards how the privatization of higher education is increasing the stress of lower class students and the implications that come along with that, along with the fact that lower class students are financially worse off because of it. This graph is a key example of what I am talking about. 

Literature Review Blog #4

Cooke, Richard, Michael Barkham, Kerry Audin, Margaret Bradley, and John Davy. "Student Debt and Its Relation to Student Mental Health." Journal of Further and Higher Education 28.1 (2004): 53-66. Web.

Summary

This paper basically analyses the relationship between attitudes toward debt and the mental health of university graduates in the UK. The study showed that students became more concerned about their finances as they moved on through university and that their attitudes toward debt were related to their mental health levels. The study also found that students who had high financial concerns possessed significantly lower grades than students with low financial concerns. Students with high financial concerns felt more "tense, anxious, or nervous," more "criticized by other people," and found it more "difficult getting to sleep or staying asleep" than students with low financial concerns. They also found evidence to suggest that students with high worry about their debt anticipated leaving school with higher debt that low debt worry students. However, the study found no relation between anticipated debt and mental health. Basically what that means is, economic and demographic factors do not appear to predict mental health, but rather, a student's level of concern over finances shows the relationship. 

Authors

Richard Cooke, Michael Barkham, Kerry Audin, and Margaret Bradley- work in the Psychological Therapies Research Center in the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds

John Davy- works at the School of Computing at the University of Leeds

Key Terms

high financial concerns- shown to have a relationship with lower grades and more mental health problems

low financial concern- shown to have a relationship with better grades and less mental health issues

Quotes

"The increase in the cost of university appears to have impacted on students' debt tolerance. Work by Lea et al. (2001) indicates that students become more debt-tolerant as they progress through higher education. In contrast, the current data show that students become more concerned with finances as they progress through university... [the main] reason for the difference is the situation students in the present study, with most students having to take loans to pay for higher education, and these loans being much larger than in 1995. "(Cooke et al. pg 62-3)

"financial concerns are heightened as students complete their degrees" (Cooke et al. pg 63) 

"Examining the pattern of results for the comparisons between the high, low, and no debt worry groups suggests that the high worry group are not necessarily more worried about things in general." (Cooke et al. pg 64)

"The one difference between students with low and no debt worry was that students with low debt worry had less feeling that they had achieved things they wanted to compared to students with no debt worry. This interesting finding suggests that although the low debt worry students are not suffering worsened mental health due to their debt, they may be prevented from doing desired activities by their debt." (Cooke et al. pg 64)

Value

This is one of the most useful articles I have found. It is an in depth study on the actual factors that are related to my paper rather than just student debt and mental health. This article, along with the article mentioned by Lea et. al for comparison, will be crucial in delving deeper into the actual effects of student debt on mental health.

Literature Review Blog #3

Citation

Laidley, Thomas M. "The Privatization of College Housing: Poverty, Affordability, and the US Public University." Housing Policy Debate 24.4 (2014): 751-768.

Summary

This article details a study done on 20 major college towns and the relationship between students living off campus and poverty rates, as well as housing affordability. The study found that there is a strong positive association between off campus population and poverty rates, as well as a modest positive association between off campus population and housing affordability. This article states that due to the privatization of colleges, and the increased need for income, more people are enrolled, in order to keep up profits, but they don't always make sure they have enough accommodations for these students. This is causing an increase in off-campus housing, and the privatization of that market as well. 

Author

Thomas M. Laidley- graduated from Boston College and went to grad school at New York University, wrote about different sociological concerns involving housing, as well as various other sociological subjects

Key Terms

studentification- basically all of the social, environmental, and economic changes that happen when a town is flooded by students that attend college in that town

public universities- the privatization of which is causing an influx of students, showing a positive correlation to poverty as well as housing affordability

Quotes

"Even if students do not come from poor families, and even allowing for the potential for social mobility engendered by their college education (although there is ample evidence that this, too, is waning), many are still in economically precarious situations and are often living independently financially" (pg 756)

"While hypothetical scenarios where students bid up rents because they cannot obtain university housing may hurt local residents, this may also be a negative outcome for the students, who also are forced to pay more for shelter." (pg 763)

"With schools increasingly left on their own to operate as de facto businesses as funding disappears, institutional competition intensifies, and enrollments and housing needs steadily increase, not only are poverty rates likely to increase and affect the provisioning of ever-shrinking funding, but housing strategy also remains an open question" (pg 765)

Value

This article provides an insight on the effects of privatization of higher education that I have not thought about. I didn't think about the fact that due to the privatization of higher education. colleges want to obtain as many students as possible, and possibly neglecting the areas in which they are located. Students also may end up paying more for living arrangements because of this. This article shows another way that privatization of higher education is affecting students, as well as affecting the towns they reside in. 

Research Blog #5: Bibliography with at least Five Scholarly Sources

Works Cited

Becker, Dana. "Does "Stress" Hide Deeper Social Problems?" Time. Time Inc., 13 Mar. 2013. 

Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

Bennett, Doris, Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter. "The Impact of Financial Stress on

Academic Performance in College Economics Courses.”Academy of Educational

Leadership Journal 19.3 (2015): 25-30. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Estroff Marano, Hara. "Crisis U." Psychology Today 48.5 (2015): 61-71 11p. CINAHL with Full

Text. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.

Laidley, Thomas M. "The Privatization of College Housing: Poverty, Affordability, and the US Public University." Housing Policy Debate 24.4 (2014): 751-768.

Lim, HanNa, et al. "Financial stress, self-efficacy, and financial help-seeking behavior of college students." Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning25.2 (2014): 148-160.

Meister, Bob. "Debt and Taxes: Can the Financial Industry Save Public Universities?" 

Representations. 1st ed. Vol. 116. N.p.: U of California, 2011. 128-55. The Humanities 

and the Crisis of The Public University.JSTORE. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Richardson, Thomas, Peter Elliot, and Ronald Roberts. "The Relationship between Personal Unsecured Debt and Mental and Physical Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis." The Relationship between Personal Unsecured Debt and Mental and Physical Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.

"Student Loan Statistics." - ACA International. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Walsemann, Katrina M., Gilbert C. Gee, and Danielle Gentile. "Sick Of Our Loans: Student Borrowing And The Mental Health Of Young Adults In The United States." Social Science & Medicine 124.(2015): 85-93. ScienceDirect. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Research Blog #4: Research Proposal

Aaron Triolo

Professor Goeller

Research in the Disciplines: College!

March, 2016

Research Proposal

Working Title: The Privatization of Stress

Topic

I intend to show, through the use of my sources, that the privatization of higher education is affecting the mental health as well as the future prospects of both students and post-students negatively. The main controversy that I will be discussing is privatization in general. The article written by Bob Meister, "Debt and Taxes: Can the Financial Industry Save Public Universities?” explains the controversies behind privatization, while explaining its effects on tuition and students. Besides that, I intend to provide evidence showing how the privatization of higher education is negatively affecting students.

Research Question

In what ways is the privatization of higher education damaging students?

Theoretical Frame

To start my paper, I will introduce the main topic, describing privatization stating my argument, that privatization of higher education is harming student and post-students in many ways, To begin my argument, I will rely on Meister’s article, as stated above. I want to explain how exactly the privatization of higher education is affecting tuition, as well as students.

I intend to then dive into how the raised tuition and need for student loans and the accompanying student debt is affecting students. I will discuss Walsemann, Gee, and Gentile’s article, "Sick Of Our Loans: Student Borrowing And The Mental Health Of Young Adults In The United States." This article details an analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (1997) in which they find evidence showing an association between student loans and poorer psychological functioning. This study brings up an important topic that needs to be discussed further in my paper: inequality. The study shows that parental wealth can moderate the association between student loans and poorer psychological functioning,

Along with the previously mentioned article, I plan on using Bennet, McCarthy, and Carter’s article, “The Impact of Financial Stress on Academic Performance in College Economics Courses.” This article describes a study done that shows a statistically significant link between financial stress and academic performance. This study also brings up the issues of inequality. As stated in the article,“A significantly higher proportion of the stressed students with lower scores were women, minorities, and first-generation college students, groups with below average rates of college attendance,” (Bennet, 29). Through discussing this along with the “Sick of Our Loans” article, three main negative effects of privatization are stated: student loans are affecting mental health negatively, worrying about student loans and scholarly financial struggles can negatively affect grades, and privatization is causing even more inequality amongst its students.

Dana Becker’s TIME article, "Does "Stress" Hide Deeper Social Problems?" discusses modern stress and its implications. She shows the transfer of stress from an institutional one, to a private one. Now, stress is “our” fault, rather than a larger societal problem that may be in place. Becker speaks of addressing these societal problems, rather than each taking them on as personal responsibilities. I am not sure yet whether Becker’s article will be best introduced along with the Meister article, in order to explain the progression of the paper, or closer to the end, to add a nice last input on the subject, and a good connection to a closing argument.

Hara Estroff Marano’s article, “Crisis U” is all about the general state of mental health amongst college students. This article may or may not find its way into my paper. If I end up using this article, it will be to show an example of how bad the problem of mental health in higher education is already, in order to strengthen the argument that some sort of societal change needs to happen.

Research Plan

One of my main concerns so far is that a lot of my research is bringing up inequality. Most of my research is saying that the main effect of privatization that has the most wide-spreading effects is the fact that it raises tuition, causing the need for student loans. This effect mostly affects low income students from low income families. I do not have much information on how privatization influence affluent students or even middle class students. Along with this, I need to find more ways that privatization directly affects students. A lot of what I have so far shows correlations, or links, but no conclusive evidence. This will involve more research on privatization itself, and its effects on higher education. I need to understand the full spread of how privatization is affecting higher education before I can understand its effects on the students

Working Bibliography

Becker, Dana. "Does "Stress" Hide Deeper Social Problems?" Time. Time Inc., 13 Mar. 2013.

Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

Bennett, Doris, Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter. "The Impact of Financial Stress on

Academic Performance in College Economics Courses.”Academy of Educational

Leadership Journal 19.3 (2015): 25-30. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Estroff Marano, Hara. "Crisis U." Psychology Today 48.5 (2015): 61-71 11p. CINAHL with Full   Text. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.

Meister, Bob. "Debt and Taxes: Can the Financial Industry Save Public Universities?"

Representations. 1st ed. Vol. 116. N.p.: U of California, 2011. 128-55. The Humanities

and the Crisis of The Public University.JSTORE. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

"Student Loan Statistics." - ACA International. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Walsemann, Katrina M., Gilbert C. Gee, and Danielle Gentile. "Sick Of Our Loans: Student

Borrowing And The Mental Health Of Young Adults In The United States." Social Science & Medicine 124.(2015): 85-93. ScienceDirect. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Literature Review Blog #2

 Citation

Walsemann, Katrina M., Gilbert C. Gee, and Danielle Gentile. "Sick Of Our Loans: Student Borrowing And The Mental Health Of Young Adults In The United States." Social Science & Medicine 124.(2015): 85-93. ScienceDirect. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Summary

This article is about a group that analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997) in order to see if there is an association between amount of student loans and psychological functioning in current students, as well as adults aged 25-31. The study found preliminary evidence showing that student loans are associated with poop psychological functioning in school as well as after.

Authors

Katrina M. Walsemann and Danielle Gentile work in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. Gilbert C. Gee works in the Department of Community Health Sciences in the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina.

Key Terms

parental wealth- shown to moderate the effects of student loans on psychological functioning

psychological functioning- was assessed using a well known and reliable testing method of general mental health, was shown to have an association with the cumulative amount of student loans

Quotes

"This study provides preliminary evidence that student loans are associated with poorer psychological functioning while enrolled in school as well as in early adulthood, and further, that the cumulative amount of student loans borrowed may be moderated by parental wealth." (pg 92)

"Our results also indicate that the strength of the association between cumulative student loans and mental health is similar for individuals who do and do not attain a college degree." (pg 91)

"The present findings raise novel questions for further research regarding student loan debt and the possible spillover effects on ther life circumstances, such as occupational trajectories and health inequalities." (pg 85)

Value

This article will have much value to my paper. It clearly shows an association between student loans and poor mental health. This is a great piece of evidence for the point I am trying to make in my paper. It will go along well with the scholarly article I did my first Literary Review on. This article shows how student loans are affecting student psychologically, and the other article shows how educational financial stress is affecting schoolwork, I am starting to see a natural progression of how my paper read.

Literature Review Blog #1

Citation

Bennett, Doris, Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter. "THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL STRESS ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN COLLEGE ECONOMICS COURSES."Academy of Educational Leadership Journal 19.3 (2015): 25-30. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Summary

This article is about a study done on an Economics class, analyzing the effect of the students' stress about financial matters on their academic achievement. The study found a statistically significant link between financial stress and academic performance. 

Authors

Dr. Doris Bennet, Dr. Cynthia McCarty, and Shawn Carter are all Economics professors at Jacksonville State University

Key Terms

financial stress- found in 83% of the students questioned, showed a statistically significant link to academic performance

academic performance- found to be influenced by a number of factors: gender, parental education, GPA, ACT score, and financial stress, along with others

Quotes

"Students who were worried about paying for college averaged 4.5 percentage points lower in class grades than students who were not worried about paying for college." (pg 29)

"A significantly higher proportion of the stressed students with lower scores were women, minorities, and first-generation college students, groups with below average rates of college attendance. Working more hours to meet financial obligations, they have less time to study, which has a negative impact on their academic performance." (pg 29)

"Several studies found that financially stressed students were more likely to be employed and work longer hours, leaving less time for study. Financially stressed students were more likely to drop courses and less likely to graduate. (Welbeck et al, Kara et al, Trombitas)."(pg 26)

Value

This study will really help me to state the argument that through privatization raising tuition, and creating the need for student loans and the accompanying debt, students are affected negatively stress-wise, and therefor, affecting their academic performance.

Research Blog #3: How might privatization connect to your topic?

How does privatization affect mental illness and stress in college? First of all, privatization increases tuition. That is the biggest and most obvious contribution. But because of the privatization of higher education, along with the raised tuition that this causes, the student loan industry has become one of the largest in America. It is, in almost every case, necessary for students to take out a student loan of some kind in order to pay for college. With the power that the student loan industry has, students end up owing large amounts of money for much of the rest of their lives. This is the main other cause of stress and mental illness in student and post-student lives. 

Research Blog #2: Scouting the Territory

My topic idea still stands. The analytical paper sparked my interest in the affects of higher education on the mental health of students. I found a lot of useful statistics on the APA (American Psychological Association) website, as well as the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) website. I will definitely be citing specific surveys from these websites. 

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/06/college-students.aspx

https://www.nami.org/collegesurvey

My research has not really helped me to refine my topic yet. I know that I want to focus on how the privatization/neoliberalism of higher educatio is creating mental health issues in America. I will probably need to do more research on how privatization/neoliberalism of higher education affects college's tuition, as well as other possible stressors on students. I know that the privatization/neoliberalism of higher education causes inflation of tuition, but I want to research more on why, and also, what other affects this can have on students' mental health, other than high debt. 

Research Blog #1: Initial Topic Idea

I wrote my Analytical paper on the effects of the privatization and neoliberalism of higher education on the mental health of students. This topic actually ended up sparking my interest. and I would be very interested in finding out more on the subject. This may change through the course, if I find something that is interesting enough, I will want to look more into that. But I will probably end up looking at the mental health problems that are associated with the high stress environment of college.