Digging Out Of The Hole: How Millennials Can Reduce Their Debt

New data compiled and released by the New York branch of the United States Federal Reserve Bank shows that Millennials are amassing significant debt loads. A primary cause of this crushing fiscal burden many Millennials are shouldering comes from the constantly increasing cost of higher education. Tuition and fees for public colleges rose over eighty percent over an eight year period, from 2001 to 2009. About thirty percent of all Millennial debt results from college costs.

In 2016, the average graduating student left school with with more than thirty seven thousand dollars in student loan debt. Plus consumer debt, usually credit cards for spending that occurred while in school, the typical new graduate is more than forty thousand dollars in the hole before they’ve even entered the post-college work force.

Apart from the mental stress of this fiscal burden, Millennials are reacting to their debt loads by declining to take on more. This is most notable in the reduction in home ownership rates among Millennials. The Federal Reserve calculates about a third of a million more Millennials might be home owners if they weren’t buried under the debt loads they’re struggling with. It’s also affecting other lifestyle factors, including car ownership and a reluctance to live in areas where there is not access to public transportation.