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.