LETTER: Young people should quit whining about student loan debt
In response to your story about student loan debt:
Wow, I feel so sorry for the youth of today given that they cannot manage their average of $27,000 in student debt. I graduated from college in 1982, after only three years, and had $7,500 in student loans to pay off. The 2019 equivalent is $20,045. What a hugely unmanageable difference. Add in a fourth year of college debt, and I’d be right on track with the youth of today, who average taking five years to graduate.
My parents did not help me at all, and I did not live at home, so everything was on me. I made only $1,000 a month when I graduated, and yet I paid my debt off in three years by not demanding instant gratification and by waiting to start a family. I by no means lived as a stay-at-home hermit during those three years either. I guess the difference is that I was taught in high school how to balance a checkbook, build a credit rating and manage credit. Perhaps schools and parents ought to start doing that again.
Today’s students should stop whining, not act as if they are entitled while at college and after, pay off their debt and get on with life. We do not have a debt crisis. We have a spending and refusal to act responsibly crisis.
