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<title> Student financing: Burden or Possibility? </title>
The twenty-first century is said to become the age of knowledge. In Sweden though almost nothing is done to encourage higher education. Does student financing have to be a burden for the society? The student grant- and loan-system seems to be arranged to deter as many as possibly to take a loan. This is a problem and society needs to consider the long-term effects of it. Both society and individual people suffer from it. The present situation is that people who want to study at a higher level a few years have to get into debts that they never will be able to pay back. Students should be financing their studies with money, partly grant and partly loan, but the former a bigger part and the latter a smaller part, than today. I will here present the reasons for why I think this is a good idea. Since this is a very complex matter and the effects would be far-reaching, I will not be able to comment on all of them.
	 The main argument for a better system for helping students to finance their studies is that it would inevitable encourage more people to start studying; more would finish their studies and in the end the level of education would rise. For example: I am studying at university to become a teacher, for which there is a high demand in the society right now. However, to be able to complete the three-and-a-half-year long education I have to take a loan that I, with the current teacher salary, not even will be able to start paying back. If I could have financed my studies some other way it would not have seemed so much as a big step, and then it would have been a much easier decision. Furthermore, if more people had a higher education that would lead to other positive things. 
	 It could potentially save the state a good deal of money. Not at first, of course, but in the long run. If we could find the money for this now we would be paid back later. When the level of education among the population rises, this would lead to economic growth. The state would get tax money from the people who had studied when they started work instead of being unemployed as they probably would have been since most jobs nowadays require a long education. People would also do a more effective work after being educated and because they are motivated for it. This situation could boast both the national and the individual economy. Besides if students thought that there was a chance of paying back the loan they would probably consider it worth holding back spending a little bit, because then there would be less to pay back.
	 Economic growth and money, both good, but what are life really without happiness. Do more education then create happiness? This is, I think, about personal development. Everybody should have the right to find their own place in existence and should not be stopped by economic factors, also, everybody should have the opportunity to feel the joy of knowledge and gain a better self-confidence from studying. If someone end up with the right job I think that person will be much happier then if he had not. If the right place had not been found early in life there did not have to be disaster, there could be further education or maybe something entirely new. Individual lives and society as a whole would be a lot happier. 
	 In conclusion, student financing would not have to be a burden for society but could be a tremendous possibility. A new system of financing education, guaranteeing the possibility for life-long learning, telling everybody education is good and that society appreciate the efforts done would render us a much better world to live in. I would say it is a question about democracy, it is important to give the chance of education to everyone. Not for the making of a better economy, although that most likely would come as a bonus, and not to make everyone professors; but for nobody to become a slave.
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