Should a student have to keep a certain GPA to receive a student loan? Some people may try to persuade you that a higher GPA shows that a student is more responsible, and therefore, more likely to pay back their loan. Others may tell you that if a student can’t get good grades then they don’t deserve to get a loan.
My opinion, as a college student, is that a GPA means a lot less in college than it did back in high school. In high school, most students were not working full time on top of full time classes. Most students lived with their parents. Most students were single and childless. The pressures of the world were a lot less severe back in high school, although most teens would vehemently disagree.
The truth is that there are very few college students that don’t work at all, get everything paid for, and have all the time in the world to focus on school. A lot of students have to work at least thirty hours a week, possibly take care of children, and simply don’t have 100 percent of their mind on their school work. Real life tends to interject, loudly and cruelly, and it’s impatient to boot.
I am not giving any college student an excuse to not work as hard as they can on the education that they are paying for, but I am saying that there are legitimate reasons for a low GPA.
Loans are a terrible idea for any student, but sometimes they are necessary. It doesn’t seem fair to have to be smart enough to get a loan as well as have decent credit. On top of all that, the student still has to pay that money back with exorbitant amounts of interest. Loans are like this massive financial black hole looming over your graduation date, waiting to suck in every spare penny you have, and then some. Why add the extra stress of having to pass one more qualification? Why should students have to jump through one more hoop?
By all means, deny somebody a loan for having zero income and being in debt to five credit cards. That is a good, no, that is a fantastic reason to doubt their ability to pay it back. Having a low GPA, however, is not. A person’s GPA doesn’t reflect their ability to pay back their loan, it is simply a reflection of the scores that teachers give them. It is important to get good grades, especially when you’re paying for the classes with your hard earned money (or possibly the government’s hard earned money), but if someone wants to pay mass amounts of money to earn a piece of paper instead of an education, that should be their problem.