With the commencement season now in progress, many graduates are feeling as carefree and stress-free as ever, despite facing the crushing weight of student debt. This is probably because more than a quarter still think the government is going to make it magically go away.
According to the Student Loan Report’s Student Debt Survey, 27.5 percent of graduates believe the Department of Education will forgive all or part of their student loan balance. This is not surprising, granted that 56 percent of 18-24 year olds voted for Hillary Clinton in the general election, and Sanders won more votes during the primaries among those under 30 than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined.
After 18 months of hearing that college would be virtually free from these Democratic candidates, it seems that many graduates are still under that delusion that Trump will implement his opponents’ pie-in-the-sky promises.
In reality, only a very small percentage of non-profit and government workers will qualify for student loan forgiveness under the Department of Education’s current model, and Trump has actually proposed cutting this program for future grads and putting everyone into one income-based aid program. While Trump’s ideas for education reform might leave some grads hopeful, the current state of Congress makes any serious change extremely unlikely at the present time.
Part of the underlying issue is that students don’t even know the total amount they owe or what their monthly payments will be. The survey found that 22.75 percent of respondents could not identify their current student debt balance within $500, and 36 percent of 2017 graduates did not know their monthly student loan payment after graduation within $20.
As they say, ignorance is bliss.
While it’s perhaps the graduates who will suffer the most, their parents aren’t off the hook. The survey also found that more than 24 percent of grads plan on hitting up their parents for help in paying off their student loans. Moreover, for those “trusting” parents have co-signed on private loans, their own credit could suffer if their kids find themselves behind on payments.
Millennials are always being called entitled brats by Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers, and this survey seems to offer some truth to this label. An increasing number of graduates feel entitled to a free, first-class education, just as many feel entitled to cheap, first-class healthcare.
You really can’t blame them. Average millennial salaries and home ownership rates remain miserably low, so why not demand some perks? Regardless, our politicians are to blame for creating a culture of entitlement through their pandering campaign promises.
Once something is promised, it’s hard to make that promise go away — even after candidates lose bigly.
