Student Loan Debt and How it Pertains to Psychology

Jack Coyer

General Psychology, PSYC 1000

18 September 2022
 The United States of America is a country that generally comes with a drastic amount of

student loan debt when people choose to go to college. Thousands of students opt to take out

loans to cover the costs of school, and with the incredibly high tuition costs, these loans typically

share the same expensive nature as tuition itself. Around the world, 45 million people owe $1.6

trillion in federal loans, which is the second highest amount for loan amounts in the country right

behind mortgages. This has led to lots of discussion about whether student loans are fair in who

gets them from the application list and the amount of money each student is loaned based off

their socioeconomic status. This paper aims to explore the seven psychology unifying themes

and how they apply to this current event.

Psychology is empirical, meaning that it bases its theories and claims off primary

research and observation rather than using individual logic or inferences. This relates to student

loan debts because real statistics are used to figure out the amount of student debt there is in the

country, and the reason why Biden is moving towards removing much of that student debt is

because of the amount of people who have advocated for it. For example, the statistic offered

before about the amount of people and money those people owe in federal loans serves as an

example of an observation for how many people a plan like this could affect. In general, it is

observed that high student loan rates are very common in the United States. Utilizing this

observation could lead a psychologist to gather empirical evidence that perhaps confirms more

student loan debt equates to a decline in mental health.

There are countless ways to look at any given event, and that isn’t different in

psychology. Theoretical diversity simply means that a certain event or topic can be dissected and

understood throughs several different theories from varying point of views. This current event is

theoretically diverse because of the several different psychological perspectives that come with
them. Students who fall under a larger amount of debt typically are impacted mentally in a

negative way, whereas students who don’t have debt or little debt are generally healthier

mentally and physically. In this article, examples of students’ overjoyed reactions to the news of

this debt removal plan indicate that they lead lives with less stress and more room to focus on

their academics rather than the constant weight of student loans on their shoulders. However,

another perspective could indicate that removing debt from certain students could be unfair, and

that some people should receive more financial assistance than others to combat racial inequality

and sexism that is littered within financial aid policies. Multiple point of views help explain why

things happen, and from a psychological lens could help understand the reasoning behind

Biden’s choice to enable this plan and justify different reactions to it from the perspective of

students.

Socio-historical context refers to the social norms that exist within the current time period

and area of the study. This current event is strongly influenced by socioeconomic contexts, as

student loans are based directly from a student’s financial, ethnic, and general personal

backgrounds. Suppose a psychologist were to conduct a study on the reasoning for Biden to issue

a financial plan like this one. Perhaps they would start by asking the question “why is he making

this plan?” The psychologist might investigate the socio-historical context of the time period,

that being present day, and observe based on that. The United States has a long history of

unfairness and classism against marginalized groups, like black people, women, members of the

LGTBQ+ community, and so on. So, the psychologist could conclude that making a financial aid

plan such as the one Biden has offered could move the country towards social equity. Or, from

another perspective, a psychologist could examine the differences between students with debt in

the US versus students with debt in other countries. Current socio-historical context shows that
student debt in the United States is common and most of the time, accepted as the norm. But if

they were to look in a country where student debt isn’t accepted as a norm, perhaps the student’s

well-being would differ drastically because of the difference in social norms. This is because the

two students have different socio-historical contexts and lead dissimilar lives. This could also be

true if people from different time periods, say the 1950s, were compared to people now in 2022.

Socio-historical context would play a big role in a study about Biden’s financial aid plan because

of how many people it would affect.

Psychology is a science that encompasses infinite areas of study. In consequence,

people’s actions, such as Biden’s choice to enact this plan, or perhaps the reactions of students to

it, have multiple causes. It is no different for Biden’s ultimate decision to move forward with

cancelling thousands of dollars of student loans. After years of thousands of dollars poured into

the federal government, Biden makes it clear that he wants to remove lots of that debt. There are

certainly many causes to this decision; they are primarily external, influenced by the media (as

most of politics are) and cultural factors because of the diversity of people this plan would affect.

But some of Biden’s personal biases surely affect his decision as well, as his own cognitive and

emotional perspectives skew what he believes is the right decision. In this current event, Biden’s

decision to remove student debt is the most obvious application of the fourth of psychology’s

unifying themes: “determined by multiple causes”.

Decision-making is also affected by cultural heritage. When something is shaped by

cultural heritage, it means that the action that was affected by the way the person was born and

raised. Factors like personal identity, religion, and family life/culture also have an important role

when it comes to the study of one’s brain or the choices they make. Going back to Biden’s

decision-making process, his choice to start creating this plan to benefit college students are
certainly affected by his cultural heritage. Looking at this from a psychologist’s point of view,

Biden being a cisgender white man holds a lot of social status. Because of this, he did not suffer

the same inequalities people in marginalized groups would, and perhaps that influenced his

desire to aid college students, specifically the ones who endure more hardship than he did.

Hereditary and environmental factors is the next unifying theme. It refers to how genetic

inherences and the way someone was brought up affects their decisions and their general

psychology. Using Biden’s choices an example once again, a psychologist might determine that

a specific thread in President Biden’s genetic makeup altered the way he empathizes with other

people. As a result, Biden’s willingness to accommodate and fulfill the desires of young people

could, in this hypothetical, alter the way he thinks and thus be the catalyst for his decision to

make this financial aid plan. On the other hand, his parents could also have affected this, because

the morals and principles they taught him could also be the reasoning behind his choices.

The last underlying theme is that the world and the experiences people have in them are

subjective. This can be defined as everyone’s experiences are idiosyncratic; each person

perceives the world and their experiences differently than everyone else. This is inherently

prominent in psychology, as psychology focuses on the individualism of humans and the way

they behave. Student loans affect everyone in different ways because people’s perception of each

circumstance they encounter is different. One person may grow to have an anxiety disorder

because of their poor experience with heavy student loans, whereas someone else wouldn’t

because of the way they react to their debt. In this way, Biden’s decision to aid people financially

will be seen subjectively.

In conclusion, the seven unifying themes of psychology help psychologists understand

current events from around the world. President Biden’s plan to remove thousands of dollars
from people’s student debt can be analyzed using these same themes. Some of them in this

scenario could be more beneficial to comprehending his decisions than others. Using socio-

historical context can allow scientists to get a grasp on his choices as well as the reactions of

students around the world, whereas using multiple causes helps to create a multi-dimensional

analysis by utilizing different perspectives and ideas. Finally, I propose that in order to further

one’s understanding of this current event, one could potentially use tools like comparing and

contrasting different financial aid plans around the world and find which one statistically leaves

students the most satisfied.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/24/us/politics/student-loan-forgiveness-biden.html