[caption id=”attachment_148615″ align=”aligncenter” width=”1024″](Butch Dill/AP)
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The crippling effect of student debt that prevents graduates from buying houses isn’t as pervasive as was assumed.
When real-estate website Zillow ran the numbers, student loan debt had little effect on the numbers of people with student debt who purchase a house.
When looking at married couples in their early 30s with at least one child, obtaining a bachelor’s degree or higher correlates with buying a home.
By using that demographic, Zillow wanted to focus on the effect that student debt had on home ownership in particular, according to Bloomberg.
For a graduate with a bachelor’s degree and no student debt, 70 percent owned homes. Even with $50,000 of outstanding loans, 66 percent still owned homes. The greatest differences were with those individuals who had an associate’s degree or no degree. The more debt they took on, the less likely they were to own a home.
Skylar Olsen, a senior economist at Zillow, told Bloomberg that graduates have a few means to lower monthly payments on student loans. If students can pay smaller amounts, they have more monthly income to pay for a house.
Student debt might not even be the biggest challenge to home ownership for graduates.
“High rents, she adds, are likely a bigger impediment to saving for a down payment than student loans.”
The Zillow analysis is not all rosy, as the targeted demographic shows the divide between those with a bachelor’s degree and those with an associate’s degree or without a degree but who took on student loan debt.
For those who enrolled in college classes but didn’t earn a degree, the decision to attend some college turned into a burden.
