What Millennials are up against.

October 10, 2014

The Obama administration is courting youths by focusing on Millennials – and yet, he has dragged his heels on taking any kind of salient action on the biggest financial issue we face: Student debt.

With over a trillion dollars in student loans, debt wracked up to pay for higher ed tops credit card debt in the US, and the class of 2014 is graduating with the most debt ever. Financial aid has nowhere near kept up with the cost of education, and student debt has doubled in the past two decades. One in five households owes some amount of money.

But that’s kind of nebulous for people who aren’t actually dealing with it every single month.

So today I asked on Twitter: How much do you pay every month in student debt? Here’s what people told me:

@mshannabrooks I accrued $42k in loans from graduate school, and am on a 25 year plan paying $251 a month.

— Brandon (@Khurzad)
October 11, 2014

@mshannabrooks ~$1000 a month, & I can’t bring myself to look at how much of that has gone to interest in the year that I’ve been paying

— Liz Kellogg (@LizKellogg_)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks been at around 400 dollars a month since I started paying in 2010, been just paying the minim, they will be paid off in 2020

— toastercookie (@toastercookie)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks I pay $300/month (minimum). Already paid off a $30k law school loan, total is close to $100k at this point, graduated in ‘06.

— Kelly Clay (@kellyhclay)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks You should ask my sister, who I think is >$600 a month, and sometimes Sallie Mae auto-debits 2x a month, just b/c.

— Chase Gallagher (@chasegallagher)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks $550/mo since late 2011…so far that’s about $18.5k

— Josh Maldonado (@jmald)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks I graduated in 2012 after 2 failed attempts, first person in my family to attend. My payments were supposed to be 1250/month

— baby ghoul (@beanmoriarty)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks my payments were actually twice as much as I was making per month at a coffee shop

— baby ghoul (@beanmoriarty)
October 10, 2014

@mshannabrooks I applied for hundreds of jobs and went from being paid $8 an hour to an unpaid internship at 27 years old

— baby ghoul (@beanmoriarty)
October 10, 2014

For the record, I pay about $550/month. I’m on a graduated repayment plan, since when I first graduated, I was living in a tiny studio, working as a barista and an unpaid intern. My parents live in a college town, but the school didn’t offer my program, and would have still been cost-prohibitive. Additionally, it’s a small town, and staying would have severely hindered my ability to find a job. I pay loans out to three lenders – and the largest is the U.S. government. Each year, I get a tax credit for paying the interest; it coveres about ½ of the interest I pay. It doesn’t even begin to help with the principle.

And lest you start throwing your 20/20 hindsight shade at all of these people (“why didn’t you live at home? In-state tuition? Community college?”) keep in mind that university is still considered to be the best way to ensure that you get a high-paying job after college (though it’s definitely no guarantee), and also that living at home/in-state tuition are both privleges that not everyone has access to.

In one 2010 study conducted by the Department of Education, about 50% of college students were found to be “first-generation” students (other figures put it at 30%, which is still nothing to shrug at), which means their parents didn’t go to college. Being born to parents who didn’t go to college puts students at a distinct financial disadvantage – and, also, often means that those students live in rural areas where there is no college nearby. The ability to save on rent/loans for room and board is contingent on living near a university or even a community college, which for many students, just isn’t an option.

There’s also an education/expectation gap; parents who didn’t go through the rigor of applying for college and chasing scholarships – which rarely cover even a majority of tuition – can’t help with things like application process. And guidance counselors rarely, if ever, mention the actual cost to the students. Their message? Aim high and figure it out later.

Really. A guidance counselor told me that.

Additionally, poo-pooing students who have the audacity to reach beyond the socio-economic status of their birth by chiding them for actually spending money on school is fundamentally bullshit.

If you’re finger-wagging at student who graduate with debt as a result of attending a school that’s expensive – or even moderately expensive, which these days, is still fucking expensive – you’re telling them they don’t deserve as good an education as those who are born with financial means. That’s what you’re saying every time you shame a young adult with debt because they should have known better.

I entered college 10 years ago. There was nothing to know better. And there was nothing else for me to do.

Oh, and, on top of all that, it’s not just poor kids who are borrowing. Plenty of kids from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds are getting saddled with this shit, according to a Pew Research study.

Student debt is, at its heart, not a fair system. Students who already have means – a home where they can stay, rent-free, near a college, parents who are supportive enough to let them live at home, parents who can help foot the bill, guidance to make educated financial choices, the list goes on – graduate from college with greater opportunities than those who don’t.

So, Mr. Obama, I have this to say: All of the talk about Millennials doesn’t mean a goddamn thing if you’re not going to address this massive issue.

6:56pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/Z896Ey1Ss5LpP

(Notes: 13)