Student loan debt: Impacting millennials more than originally thought?

For all students who began college in 2004, it is estimated that close to 40 percent could default on their student loans in the next five years.

According to a recent release from Housing Wire, student loan debt is a real problem impacting millennials, including their ability to purchase a home. Students that chose for-profit colleges tended to default more than those who attended public colleges. Fifty-two percent of attendees of for-profit colleges defaulted after 12 years, compared to 26 percent of borrowers from public schools.

Black students were more likely to default than their white peers. Twenty-one percent of black students defaulted within 12 years, the report found, compared to 4 percent of white students, and it is more likely for a black college graduate to default compared to a white student who did not graduate. It is estimated that within the next 20 years, as many as 70 percent of black borrowers could default on their student loans.

Pennsylvania recently took the top spot for most college debt per student in the country. On average, a Pennsylvania graduate owes more than $35,000, according to philly.com.

Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to matter how much a student borrowed. Thirty-seven percent of students who borrowed who defaulted within 12 years borrowed up to $6,125, while 24 percent of those who defaulted within the same time period borrowed more than $24,000.

The National Association of Realtors® found in an October 2017 report that 83 percent of non-homeowner millennials said student loans were a factor in their lack of homeownership, while 22 percent said they were delayed in moving out of a family member’s home because of their student loan debt. Twenty-eight percent of millennials reside with roommates, compared to just 20 percent who own their own property.