I’ll “only” be about $12,000 in debt by the time I graduate Hamilton College, and I’m constantly shocked by how lucky that makes me.

Student loan debt is utterly mind-boggling and on the rise.

I cannot comprehend what $12,000 of debt will mean for my future, and the average loan debt of 20,000 is simply obscene, no more, no less.

The rising cost of education is tied largely to our floundering economy, namely due to the speculative investing that led to the housing market collapse of 2008.

The large banks got away with daylight robbery, received bonuses, and CEOs went completely unpunished.

Now, student loan interest rates are nine times that of the interest rate banks pay on their debt.

And things could get a lot worse come July 1, when many student loan interest rates will jump to 6.8 percent.

Capitalism favors profit, not people, and this nation’s students have always been a mainstay of the chopping-block.

I just want, for one second, to pretend our government and their banker-overlords are correct in acting as if capitalism helps us by promoting competition and profit over people and decency and kindness and what-have-you.

If this were the case, you could only commodify and objectify the economic productivity of a college student and still come up with an irrefutable argument for lowering student loan interest rates and reforming how we deal with student debt and financing education.

College students want an education and don’t deserve any debt at all to obtain one, but society has conditioned me to believe that this wish would be idealistic and unrealistic.

So fine, all we ask is what capitalism is supposedly the best at providing: a fair shot.

Twenty thousand dollars of debt is not fair.  

Higher interest rates than literally economy-destroying banks is not fair.

Ask last year’s editor-in-chief of this publication about fair.

Anaika Miller has been attempting to transfer from UCLA, a school at which she was not obtaining the education, environment, or opportunities she was told to expect.

The thrill of acceptance to Wesleyan University was almost immediately marred by a financial impossibility beyond her control.

She was prepared for a harsh financial reality, as many college students are forced to face.

To attend a university well-regarded in matters of financial aid, Miller must shoulder a personal student loan debt of $20,000, on top of federal loans.

Her first year of attendance.

In response, she’s pleading for a fair chance at an education that we’ve all been told “hard work and perseverance” ensures us.

I also beg of you to, if nothing else, simply share her story and attempt to obtain that fair chance with others.

If hard work and perseverance do not prove enough for the brightest of our college students, than I only hope we realize where the blame truly lays for the utter collapse of a fair shot at an education.

If nothing else, student debt has given us another great reason to hate capitalism.

It’s getting closer than ever to robbing our youth at the shot of merely assimilating into the system, let alone having the chance the fix it.