Literature Review One

Source

Nursing Student Loan Debt: A Secondary Analysis of the National Student Nurses' Association Annual Survey of New Graduates.   

Citation

Feeg, Veronica D., and Diane J. Mancino. "Nursing Student Loan Debt: A Secondary Analysis Of The National Student Nurses’ Association Annual Survey Of New Graduates." Nursing Economic$ 32.5 (2014): 231-240. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.

Summary

The article discusses student loan, specifically in the nursing field and the struggles of nursing students to get jobs and start paying off their debts in a timely fashion and why it's so difficult for them to do so when compared to other graduates.  It mentions the trend that students are borrowing more money to complete their degrees, similar to the national trend of increase borrowing.  For nursing students (and most other undergrads)  loans are the primary source of money and that students wish there were more ways to acquire money for their degrees, because the debt from loans only adds to their stress.  It brings the struggle of specialized schools, such as nursing schools.  These students need to pay for the often more expensive schools such as law or nursing schools in order to be competitive, but then they're expected to start paying the loans after graduating.

Authors

Veronica D. Feeg has a PhD, is an RN and a FAAN.  She's the associate Dean, and director for Center of Nursing Research and Scholarly Practice in Nursing in Molloy College in Rockville Centre in New York state.

Diane L. Mancino has a EdD, is an RN, CAE, FAAN and is an Executive Director, National Student Nurses' Association and the Foundation of NSNA in Brooklyn, New York and is the editor of Dean's 

Notes.

Quotes

"Nursing School is expensive, but worth every penny.  But it is a burden to wonder how I will afford tuition and how I will be able to afford payments on student loans within 6 months after graduation.  Nursing school requires my full devotion and working to afford this program takes away some of my study time and only adds more stress.. I wish there were more resources to pay for school" (NSNA,2014) (Feeg and Mancino, 236)

"Loan consumers must play it forward:  What happens after they graduate (or do not graduate)?  When will loan payments start"  When will loan payments start?  What is the interest rate and is it fixed or variable?  What will they do if they cannot find a job and loan repayment starts?" (Feeg and Mancino, 238)

"When the date for students who reported they attended a private, for-profit proprietary school were separated and compared to loan data for all students, a clear pattern emerged.  New nursing graduates who were students in for-profit proprietary schools were more likely to report they had accumulated large debt to pay for school when compared to all new nursing graduates combined: almost 90%" (Feed and Mancino 235)

Key Terms

ADN/BSN:  Associates Degree in Nursing and Bachelor of Science in Nursing respectively.   An ADN takes around 2 years to complete while a BSN takes around 4 years (including prerequisites.)  They both include core nursing curriculum, while a BSN has additional courses in theory, research information etc.  While both are Nursing programs, those with ADN may find more trouble getting work, and may need to take additional courses, delaying their ability to get a job and pay loans.

NSNA:  National Student Nurses' Association

Value

I picked the article because it has a very large amount of stats discussing a specific field, but with plenty of information and study methods than can be used to compare to other graduates.  When discussing and analyzing a specific type of school and student many parallels can be tied to the general student, and the method of research done in the article makes it easy to tie it to other scholarly articles with similar topics.  In it, I can clearly see how these students measure in debt and what kind of problems they are running into, and it touches on many topics such as the loan bubble and mental problems along with inequality in the workforce/hiring practices.  While not a med student, the article directly relates to me because it is about undergrads and student debt.

Post 2

I still feel like I can use the Must Attend College mindset as a topic, but the readings that I've read so far have been more aimed towards people wanting or already attending college, and not the other way around.  

Some google searches got me some good information and stats.  One site I went to said that around 44% of college grads are underemployed-working jobs that don't require degrees.  According to the site it's a number that hasn't really changed since 1994, but it still shows that many people aren't using their degrees.  Some other numbers stood out to me, like rise in 30% of low wage jobs and a drop from higher paying jobs that don't require a degree.

The articles and books that seem important are things like magazines such as times alongside academic journals.

Information grabbed from experts from some books and articles repeat some of the problems I'm looking at, a rise in underemployed workers that may be tied to overall rise in college grads, and as a result lowering the weight of a degree itself.  Lots of the info that I've found were from various articls that list studies and stats.   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/many-college-grads/  shows stats like projected jobs in the future that require degrees compared to those that actually have them.  It shows stats that can reinforce my topic, one part stating that employers are demanding better educated workers creates a very competitive environment due to increased number of grads that also results in lower pay due to the employers lack of confidence in the degrees held.   Another site http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/12/19/Why-Americas-College-Students-Dont-Graduate         has information on the increase in price to get a degree, and the actual effectiveness of the degree.  One point it brings up is the saturation of relatively useless classes.

I have not found any controversies yet, but one I could think of is that people need to get degrees in order to compete in the changing job market, so mediocre or not, people will strive for the degrees.  Even if someone has a degree and is underemployed or low on the corporate ladder, not having one may result in them not even being considered.

Post One

Hum alright so this is the first post.  The main topic that I'm interested is probably the idea that everyone needs to go to a University.  There are lots of stories about the student loan bubble and college dropout rate, but they don't always mention the increase rate of people going to college.  While aiming for higher education isn't a bad thing, it's not necessarily for everyone.  The fact that everyone from parents to the government is pushing for higher education is just awful, it's essentially just fueling a business.  Loads of kids who I believe shouldn't be going to college are being pushed to taking out loans and attending because everyone else is doing it, even though it may not benefit them at all.   I think it's a pretty big problem, so at the moment that's the topic that I'm looking at.