PARENTS & EDUCATORS: Are We Crazy to Encourage Kids to Take On College Debt?

It makes me incredibly sad to see our youth today burdened with debt before they even graduate from college. Especially as:

Jump to Blog

19% of our bankruptcy filers are college kids
Over 30% of kids today don't know how credit card actually work nor do they know how to balance their checkbooks.
70% of our population lives paycheck to paycheck.

So what happens when college is over and we sit here with debt when life begins to unfold? Ahhh...most of us know:

We start to make a living in the real world.
We start to have families.
We buy our first house.

Suddenly, before we know it, we are feeling the pressures of paying our household bills, maintaining our monthly house payments, forking out money for childcare, and being stuck in a job we hate. What happens when we add to the mix unexpected emergencies that come in every person's life when we are up to our eyeballs in debt?

This is where PAIN, FEAR, EMBARRASSMENT and PANIC enter the picture.

Check out these shocking college debt stats taken from CNN:

Average student loan debt is hovering around $27,000.
ONE out of 5 households today having student loans.
Some 44% of student loans are owed by those under age 35. 26% owed by those between 35 and 44. Even senior citizens are in this mix coming in at around 2% of the outstanding student loan debt.
The U.S. Department of Education reported that 9.1% of borrowers defaulted on their student loans WITHIN 2 YEARS of their first payment in fiscal year 2011.

So is it even possible to get through college without debt?

YES, I TELL YOU IT IS.

If you are a parent, educator, or college bound student, I challenge you to pick up Zac Bissionate's books, Debt Free U and his new book How to Be Richer, Smarter, & Better Looking Than Your Parents (seriously, for less than $20, you could be saving THOUSANDS of dollars and years of pain).

college debt

So is it CRAZY to encourage our kids to take on college debt? I will let you decide.

Question: What action steps can you take today to have your college student start out with no debt when they graduate?

Live Beyond Awesome.

Jen McDonough

Twitter @TheIronJen

Website: www.TheIronJen.com

Attention To Those Looking to Help Spread Hope: Our book Living Beyond Rich is due out 12/4/12. This book WILL hit home for those who you may know that are suffering from financial troubles. I am asking you to please consider joining my book launch team that will be spreading hope and inspiration to others later on this year. If you are interested, please click HERE (it will be fun and simple I promise).

EVENT PLANNERS: Please connect with me through my speaking page HERE to let me know you would like a FREE ebook copy of my Amazon Top 100 book Living Beyond Awesome or an ebook of my newest book, Living Beyond Rich.

Tags: college debt, debt free, how to get out of debt

0 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of 48Days.NET to add comments!

Join 48Days.NET

Comment by Jen McDonough "The Iron Jen" on October 25, 2012 at 10:47pm: oh Rich, you are too fun! thanks much for your comments (on my home blog as well). I LOVE your idea of finding such fun out of the box solutions for your kids!!! With having them pay for their own, most likely the type of degree will be chosen with care. LOVE too the idea of having them start their own businesses - I bet it would be a VERY empowering experience for them. I am sure with 5 kids, you must have a variety of personalities that thrive under different circumstances. It will be interesting as time goes on where their paths will lead because of how you empowered them with these great choices. Great parenting to learn from...thank you!

Comment by Rich Avery on October 25, 2012 at 9:35pm: Jen, great post, and thanks for sharing those books - I'll check them out. My wife and I are seriously talking about helping our kids start their own businesses instead of sending them to college. Let them get a year or two of business under their belt, then if they want to go to college, they can do it on their own dime. And...they'll have a much better idea of what they want to pursue then.

Comment by Jen McDonough "The Iron Jen" on October 24, 2012 at 7:23pm: Dan,

Agreed, some college debt stories are very heart-breaking, especially as those kids grow up to have real problems in life that are only worsened by the heavy burdens of debt. It still amazes me to see people in their fifties that have struggled with finances and are still paying off debt that are encouraging their kids now to take out loans at $50,000 a year because their child "likes" a school.

LOVE your INCREDIBLE story of how one CAN get an education without debt.

Thanks Dan.

Comment by Dan Miller on October 24, 2012 at 6:48pm: Jen - yes and yes. The college debt stories are heart-breaking and so unnecessary. Thankfully I was a poor farm kid who wasn't exposed to the convenience of student loans. I thought you had to have money to go to school so Joanne and I lived in a little trailer on the edge of Ohio State University. I bought the trailer for $1245 and our monthly lot rent was $27.00. We just lived very simply but had a blast and never borrowed money. Even for graduate school we just used the same plan - I had a teaching assistantship that paid me $200 a month and erased my tuition. By the time I started my doctoral studies I was making enough money that again we just paid as I went along. So I'm not opposed to getting degrees - but I loathe the borrowing that most kids today do.

Comment by Jen McDonough "The Iron Jen" on October 24, 2012 at 5:49pm: oh my, yes, I think we could all say I wish I knew back then what I know now. (: HOWEVER, you are right Bruce in that you WILL make a difference in the lives of others because of your experiences which is pretty dang cool!!! Thanks Bruce!!

Comment by Bruce R. Cross on October 24, 2012 at 11:30am: Jen - great insights. I could say I wish I knew what I know now back then. However, I can say that I plan to make a difference in the lives of others in the scenarios with college and debt. Thanks....Bruce