An estimated four million students are graduating from college in 2024, with many of them carrying heavy student loan debt. Nationally, that debt has reached staggering proportions, at more than $1.5 trillion. Cassandra Happe is an analyst with the personal finance website WalletHub, which recently conducted a study on student loan debt.
“We’re looking at a total of over $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, making it the second largest type of household debt after mortgages,” according to Happe.
Analysts say that debt load is posing long-term issues for many borrowers.
“When you look at that for the average borrower, they owe around $37,000 and that often extends the payments for these student loans into middle age and ends up delaying other financial goals as they focus on paying down that debt.
In Athens, the situation is even more challenging.
“In Athens, the student loan debt burden is pretty significant,” Happe said. “The median student loan debt is around $22,367 while the median annual income for adults with at least a bachelor’s degree is around $46,058. So, this results in a debt-to-income ratio around 48.6%, which is substantially higher than the national average.
Happe says that indicates that nearly half of graduates’ annual incomes would ne needed to pay off their student loan debt if they were to try to pay that off in one year.
She says nationally, the debt-to-income ratio is around 34 percent.
