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Working With Students Who are $35,000 in Debt
A whole lotta talk these days about the student loan crisis.
I have a front row seat to the situation. There are 41 students in my department at a regional state university in the middle of the country.
Every single one is in debt.
They are a diverse group of cultures, races, genders, sexuality, identities, socio-economic status and experiences. The majority are in their early 20s, trying to finish up their undergraduate degrees. They are a cross-section of America.
The common thread that ties them together is that they are perpetually broke. The average amount of debt they owe is approximately $35,000.
My husband and I have never experienced student debt. We graduated from college in the late 1980s. We paid our tuition each semester with money from our old-fashioned savings account. We worked our way through college. When we graduated, we were both able to land full time jobs with benefits in our careers of choice.
That seems so long ago in a land far, far, and farther away.
Today, it is a much different story. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, the most recent data on student loan borrowers shows that on average, these people owe $28,650. In the United States in 2019, there are more than…