Student Debt: What Are We Thinking?

I had a gut-wrenching talk with one of my students about the debt he will incur when he graduates from college. He was accepted recently to a college whose cost of attendance is $45,000 a year. The college gave him $7,000 a year in grants. To put it in a way we all understand, his $7,000 was a 15% discount off the going rate.

Not counting the yearly 6% increases he'll receive from the college, and because his parents are strapped for funds to help him pay, his debt upon graduation - at age 22 - will exceed $140,000.

As a real consequence, imagine the following scenario. Three or four years after graduation, he meets the girl of his dreams, and before long the discussion of marriage comes up. But before they both decide to make the Big Decision, the conversation goes like this, starting with the young man:

"I can't tell you how lucky I am to be with you."

"I feel the same way."

Then she asks: "Before we go any further with talk of marriage, I need to ask you one question."

"What's that, sweetheart?"

"How much college debt do you have?"

"Oh...about $140,000. My payments are about $1,500 a month."

"Really? Well, how are we going to buy a house and raise a family over the next ten years with your debt? Plus, I have about $40,000 of my own."

You can see where this is going. How 'bout nowhere? That is, the couple look at each other in exasperation, and for very practical reasons, maybe she opts outs of the relationship and two good hearts are broken.

I asked my student if he could process what a $140,000 debt means. He confessed that he couldn't. Maybe it's some sort of fictional phenomenon that other people worry about, similar to a tornado disaster we New Englanders only see on TV. We know tornadoes happen in Oklahoma and Texas, but not here.

Very slowly this tornado of debt is heading toward this young high school senior, and he doesn't even see it.

Any thoughts? Please post your comments here.