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.
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