There is a prevailing sentiment in this country that the so-called Millennial generation, who came of age in the years immediately before and immediately after the new millennium, are lazy, entitled, selfish and vain, among other adjectives.
There is an op-ed expressing this view in nearly any mainstream media outlet. The primary example that comes to mind is columnist Joel Stein's piece in TIME Magazine in May with the headline, "Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation."
The general tone of these articles is that somehow our Baby Boomer and Generation X parents have let this generation devolve into a brainless, spineless all-consuming parasite leeching off our parents and then whining when we can't find jobs.
It must be nice to be able to make a real living painting these pretty pictures that only serve to artificially confirm older generations' bias against a newer cohort they can't seem to understand.
Those who subscribe to this point of view merely come across as tone-deaf when we consider what the Millennial generation faces: a dwindling Social Security endowment, inflation, low-wage jobs, rising costs of attendance at four-year universities and the ever-growing amount of student loan debt.
It's nothing we haven't heard before: College tuition has been rising steadily, and more and more students have been turning to federal student loans to finance their education.
There are currently 37 million student loan borrowers and only a quarter of those still owe less than $6,000. Fifty-eight percent of federal student loan debt is held by students whose household net worth lies in the bottom 25 percent, while only 9 percent of debt is held by those in the top 25 percent.
According to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, "Federal student aid policy has steadily put resources into student loan programs rather than need-based grants, a trend that straps future generations with high debt burdens."
As of July 1, the interest rates on federal subsidized student loans increased from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent after the federal law that reduced the rate to 3.4 percent expired with no replacement. This would add $1,500 to the total amount owed by the average student borrower, and would add $4,000 for those who borrowed the maximum amount of subsidized loans.
Student debt is a considerable economic force these days. The problem isn't that students must pay back their loans — that's a given and agreeing to do so is a necessary step in procuring the loans in the first place.
The problem is that students are graduating college with astronomical amounts of debt and then either entering a lackluster jobs market or diving back into advanced degrees in order to defer student loan repayment (which may require additional loans to finance).
It's not a great choice either way.
Considering that student loans often lack consumer protection measures that nearly every other financial institution has to honor — for example, you can't declare bankruptcy if you default on your student loan — it doesn't seem like a lower interest rate for subsidized loans is really that much to ask. The government will get its money back no matter what, and students whose loans go into default will be charged fees galore — there goes even more money.
Tell me more about how spoiled and entitled this generation is.
Tell Savannah about your plan to repay student loan debt at skthoma4@asu.edu or follow her at @SavannahKThomas
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