Critical Thinking. Toward the end of the article, Phelps compares the educational loan system to the U.S. health system: "In this sense, the system functions the same way our current healthcare system does it's a complicated market composed of numerous actors that operate at various levels to sell a product that people desperately need. Opting out of either system isn't much of an option, and people will go to great lengths, including taking on exorbitant debt, to have access to them."

Do you agree with her statement? If so, in what other ways are the two systems similar? In what ways are they different? What points of contrast are there? Do both cause problems above and beyond the immediate ones experienced by students or patients who cannot repay loans or medical bills?

Phelps lays out the problems with the current ways higher education is financed, but she does not discuss solutions. What suggestions do you have for fixing the problem? Would any of them also work to fix the healthcare system?

2. Writing Strategies. How does Phelps bring her text to life? What does she do to make the abstract idea that student loans cause financial hardship real and concrete? What strategy is she using? What other ideas does she use this strategy for to bring them to life for her readers?

3. Researched Writing. You have decided to compose a researched paper for your economics class on the high costs of student loan debt, not just to individuals but to their families and the larger economy. You are considering using this article, which was published in May 2014 in Commonweal, a liberal American Catholic opinion journal magazine, as a possible source.

How accurate a source do you think it would be? How could you check to see if the information is accurate and current? Which information from the article might be useful for a paper on your topic? How might you use it? As a source for statistics, as a source of quotes to support some of your points, or as a stepping stone to further research?

Article A Degree in Debt: The High Price of Higher Education by Hollis Phelps