new york
CNN
—
Going to university should be the path to a richer life. But the cost of earning a degree can be financially significant, weighing on borrowers from graduation to retirement, even if retirement is possible.
Burdened by student loan debt, nearly three in four American borrowers have postponed major life events, such as buying a home, having a child, or getting married, according to the Gallup Lumina Foundation's latest College Cost Report. The answer is that they have no choice but to do so.
“I had to put all my dreams aside and focus on getting through the day,” Jess Evans, 35, told CNN. She earned her master's degree in religious studies in 2017, with dreams of teaching at a university. However, she was unable to find a job in her field upon graduation and had trouble finding work in other fields for which she lacked experience.
Evans, who now works as director of youth programs and communications at a church north of Pittsburgh, feels trapped by debt that pays her $940 a month.
“I feel like I've been treading water all my life…I can't travel, I can't have a family because I can't afford it. It's just a slog.”
Evans is far from alone.
Dozens of people who responded to CNN's call on social media this week said their student loans have hurt their credit scores and reduced their incomes. Many respondents said they are nearing retirement age but cannot imagine quitting their jobs and would take their debts with them to their graves.
“For people who say they're not going to pursue post-secondary education, the number one issue is cost,” said Courtney Brown, who has led Gallup Lumina research for the past four years.
“When people have this kind of debt, it's not just that they can't have children, they can't buy a house, they can't start their own business,” Brown said in an interview. “And that's going to be a problem. We need local business, we need innovation. And that's the other thing that's going to hurt us.”
One in three U.S. students currently enrolled in college or other post-high school programs say they have considered quitting classes in the past six months, according to a Gallup Lumina poll. There is. 31% of these are due to cost. This is her third most cited factor for emotional stress and personal mental health reasons.
“People want to get a degree. It's not that they don't value a degree,” said Rumina, vice president of impact and planning at the Lumina Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to increase participation in education beyond high school. President Brown says: “They’re not just getting more and more frustrated; Not just because it costs more, but because it's hard to understand just how much it costs. ”
Rising tuition costs are beginning to change the narrative around the value of a college degree. A separate Gallup poll found that in 2015, more than half of Americans (57%) had “very” or “quite” confidence in higher education. Last year, this number hit a new low of 36% for her. The Gallup study did not focus on the cause of the drop in confidence, but said rising costs “likely played a significant role.”
Part of the problem lies in the size of the U.S. higher education system. There, hundreds of nonprofit colleges compete for enrollment and talent, and a large proportion of upper- and middle-class parents are willing to pay top dollar, or even attend. They also go into debt themselves to give their children the best education possible.
Some critics of the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan argue that canceling debt won't address the root causes and could instead encourage colleges to raise tuition prices even further. There is.
The White House canceled a staggering $153 billion in federal student loan debt, giving millions of borrowers a financial lifeline.
When Josh, who lives in Oregon and asked CNN not to use his last name, received an email from the Department of Education last week, his first reaction was, “What the hell do they want now?” said.
But he soon learned there was good news. That means he qualified for loan forgiveness.
“I was really surprised when I read that I was eligible now that I had reached the number of monthly payments,” he said. “Words cannot describe the feeling I had when I had a glimmer of hope that our 24-year struggle might be nearing an end.”
Josh noted that two lawsuits have already been filed against Biden's SAVE plan, and said he can't get his hopes up just yet. But imagining her debt-free life, she dreams of finally buying a house with her husband.
Biden's $153 billion in debt forgiveness is impressive, but it's less than 10% of the more than $1 trillion federal debt outstanding.
Since 2007, borrowers who work for the government or nonprofit organizations have been able to reduce their debt burden through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.But not all public sector This applies to workers.
Amy Coody, a social worker at a maximum-security women's prison in Wetumpka, Alabama, is not directly employed by the state, but rather through a third-party contractor, making her eligible for the PSLF program. He said he was not qualified.
“Even though I'm in the prison and working with inmates, they said it's not official work,” she said in an interview. “I've been paying off my mortgage for 21 years, and I'll never be able to retire at this rate.”
Borrowers who took out a private loan or transferred their debt to a private lender for consolidation are also not eligible for loan forgiveness.
Ralph Davis, 64, a chiropractor in Savannah, Georgia, is deeply dissatisfied with this. Davis said he doesn't hold a grudge against anyone who is lucky enough to have their debt canceled. But he can't help but see “some kind of inherent unfairness” in Biden's plan.
Davis graduated from chiropractic college in 1986 with about $30,000 in federal student loan debt. At that time, he was advised to consolidate those debts through a private lender. He then racked up $40,000 in debt trying to get an additional degree through a for-profit college, but ultimately lost track of his degree as the college kept changing its curriculum to move his end goal forward. I gave up.
However, because Davis consolidated his debt through a private lender, he is not eligible for the federal amnesty program.
He's not bitter about it and doesn't expect a magic wand to come along and cancel the debt.But he felt left out and accepted the reality that it might take another nine years. Finally pay off the debt.
“I freely entered into these deals to advance my career. No one tied my hands and said, 'Sign here,'” he told CNN. . “And I have been faithfully working since the day I graduated from my doctoral program in 1986, pursuing additional education, even during a pandemic.”
But over the past 40 years, “basically every dime I paid went into interest,” Davis said. “And of course that tends to put the idea of retirement on hold a little bit.”
