There are two models of college, or university as most of the world calls it, that we generally know of.
Either you get a scholarship and a free ride, or your parents are going to bear an immense financial blow while you try and get through four years of university in a country where part-time jobs are a taboo.
The sad reality of service jobs being seen as lesser than for most of the middle-class alongside a lot of problems associated with finding remote-work, most Pakistanis are thus left to those two kinds of models of trying to get a higher education.
Most Universities in Pakistan are unfortunately not great at providing degrees to their students that have value in the job market, and those that do so are essentially priced out for the average Pakistani.
The Poverty Cycle
Furthermore, unless you are going the entrepreneurial route and your ideas work out, there is very little chance that you are going to be making a salary post your undergrad that would allow you to save up for settling down eventually. These highly unfortunate circumstances mean that for those that can not get a scholarship to university, they are going to have to resign themselves to tough times getting a job that they would hope to allow them to ever retire and maybe even own a house.
And in most other countries we are exposed to, like Germany or some other European countries, the model is that most people can have their higher education paid for by the Government. Essentially, as long as you are willing to work hard and study in a university, you can.
Why take Student Loans?
In anycase, there is a third option that is very little talked about in Pakistan-College Loans. Now there is a lot of stigma attached to the idea of taking loans for college. Especially since most of what we hear about the phenomenon is something that we hear about through our pop-culture exposure to the United States. And so, all we really understand about college loans is a life-long payment for four years of your life doing a degree that does not really pay nor might it have anything to do with your career.
However, even though the experiment of college loans seems tried and tested, there are certain upsides to it that might be quite good for the people of Pakistan.
Furthermore, there might also be particularly bad drawbacks of this that might also need consideration before we give a thought to the idea of normalizing providing college loans to students wanting and willing to bet on themselves and are serious about it.
Should people even go to University?
I am not Azad Chaiwala when it comes to universities and college education, but even a broken clock is right at times.
Now, though the idea of scholarships has thankfully been around for quite a long while, the concept of student loans is still a relatively new phenomenon.
For the longest time in our history, attending centers of learning was something that only a few would do and it was actually divided amongst certain classes whether or not they would become scholars. Ofcourse, it was not a necessity to attend those centers of learning to achieve higher ranks in society, but was a consequence of a status already achieved.
The nobility was educated so as to continue its traditions.
Leaders were educated in War and in Diplomacy so as they could continue on as leaders.
Apart from these, the troubadours and fringe scholars were the only class that would really pursue education in their adult-hood and their livelihoods were intrinsically linked with being individuals that were devoted to learning, memorizing, and living indoors with their pens and paper. Essentially, those that continued to study in those times were actually ones that would be the modern college professor equivalents.
It was a skill, much like a blacksmith would have an apprenticeship before becoming one in his own right, etc. However, somewhere along the line it became necessary to have a minimum requirement of education to have any job whatsoever. Even if you were going to become someone that sits in front of the screen doing excel files or making marketing presentations you would have to go through four years of education more out of obligation than either want for education or even there being any need for it.
And so eventually, it has become an essential need for anyone wanting to thrive in the modern world. Thus the demand for attending these higher education centers has gone up and the supply has gone down. Furthermore these institutes have seen it fit to increase their costs of attendance exponentially to such degrees (pardon the pun) that taking these loans became essentially necessary.
Why and How did Student Loans begin?
Harvard became the first university to offer these in the 1800s. After this, the military (US) post WWII began offering to pay for veterans education. This trend continued to the extent where now in the US almost everyone can get student loans and attend any college they get into. This is because the country as a whole realized that it was meritorious to allow these people wanting to get higher education and either compete with the elite or with veterans in the job market.
Comparing this with Pakistan where you either had to have a rich family or had to have been the top of your class to attend college is abysmal to say the least.
In Conclusion
Currently, Student Loans are seen more as charity towards deserving students than an opportunity that most people deserve. Truth be told, in the current Job market, Pakistanis need higher education to get out of poverty. And most of these opportunities are only given to the ones that do not really need it.
For example, the most potent degree in the country is offered currently by LUMSU and in the last few years it has outpaced other universities in Fees by leaps and bounds. For a deserving student that either isn’t extended the charity scholarship or are already rich, it might just be fair that they can bet on themselves and take on loans to take their whole family out of poverty.
