Are you a recent college graduate struggling under the onerous burden of debt caused by rampant inflation in college tuition (which is itself has been caused by runaway administrative bloat)? If so, a columnist who has somehow managed to get a job at The Washington Post has some advice for you.
Here it is: Give up hope. Quit. Go back home and live in your parents’ basement.
The Daily Caller is not making this up.
The provider of this guidance is Michelle Singletary, who claims to have won awards as a WaPo syndicated columnist, and who spells the first letter of her last name as a dollar sign at her personal website.
“I was recently teaching about the dangers of debt at my church when a new college graduate asked me the same question many do these days,” Singletary writes. “‘What can I do about my student loans?'”
The person who asked the question explained that she is currently indebted to the tune of about $25,000 in student loans.
After a self-described flinch, Singletary laid down the sage wisdom: “Live for as long as you can with your parents, relatives or anyone who will allow you to stay rent-free or charge you a super-low rent.”
Don’t move to, say, New York City to chase your dreams, or any number of cities in Texas where jobs are plentiful, or the Washington D.C. area where Singletary herself resides with her husband and their three children.
No, no. Instead, head directly back to that little town you came from and settle back into your old bedroom. With any luck, that dusty PlayStation is still operational and those posters are still hanging on the wall.
Singletary reasons that students should knuckle down to “get rid of” loans “as fast as” they can.
“If you are looking for a strategy to pay off your student loans, look at your housing expense,” she reasons. “It’s usually by far the biggest budget item, taking up 30 percent to 40 percent of many people’s budgets.”
The columnist has some additional, excellent for the six millennials who haven’t already thought of it as well.
“If you don’t live near relatives or friends willing to let you live rent-free, look for people renting out a room in their house,” the columnist adds. “If you have to get an apartment, get as many roommates as you can.”
She calculates that the student with whom she spoke would be able to pay off her $25,000 in loans in just 37 months if she gave up her dreams, moved back to her podunk hometown and managed to find a job pulling $30,000 per year in pretax income.
So that’s it, then: Just three years at home with mom and dad doing whatever job you can find.
“[W]hen young adults are burdened with student loans, giving them an opportunity to live at home isn’t enabling bad behavior,” Singletary also counsels. “It’s giving them a chance to start their independence debt-free.”
She adds that older adults should also advise newly-minted graduates to live frugally — which they’ll certainly have to do with most of their income going to banks and Uncle Sam.
Career prospects for this year’s crop of newly-minted college graduates have been incredibly bleak. Over 80 percent of all graduating seniors had zilch in the way of jobs lined up for their post-campus lives as of April, according to the poll conducted by AfterCollege, a website that connects job-seeking college students with employers. (RELATED: Just 17 PERCENT Of College Grads Have Real Jobs Waiting)
This spring, a study from the Pew Research Center found that college graduates who are under 40 years of age and who have accumulated student debt have a median net worth of just $8,700. (RELATED: Student Debt-Laden College Grads Under 40 Have $8,700 Median Net Worth)
Collective student loan debt nationwide is about $1.2 trillion. As of November 2013, cumulative student loan debt owed to the U.S. federal government had increased 463 percent during the presidency of Barack Obama. (RELATED: Student Loans Skyrocketed 463 Percent Under Obama)
Follow Eric on Twitter and on Facebook, and send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.
