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Everyone looks forward to graduation.\nFor the high school senior it seemed like the day would never come. The college\ngraduate breathes a sigh of relief that several years of hard work have finally\npassed. The medical, law, or other various post college graduate may have spent\nmore than one third of their lives achieving their milestone commencement\nceremony. Families rejoice at the accomplishment and the graduate is now ready\nto embark on what the education has been all about – work and often lots of\ndebt to repay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Statistics vary on educational debt\nin America. I’ve read sources that say the average college graduate has debt\nover $50,000 and some stats are closer to $40,000 with some graduates having\ndebt over $100,000. Most sources seem to agree that about 70% of college\ngraduates have debt and over 40 million Americans owe $1.4 trillion in student\nloans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Federal Reserve reports there are\n6.8 million student loan borrowers between the ages of 40 and 49 and that these\ngraduates collectively are $229.6 billion in debt. This means that Americans in\ntheir forties with debt from student loans have an average balance of $33,765.\nThe result of this is a decrease in home ownership and the probability that\nretirement will be pushed up to age 75 for many Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
High school seniors should spend some\ntime talking with parents and high school counselors. College is not for\neveryone. Seriously consider spending the first year at a community college.\nThat is typically a savings of thousands of dollars. Also, seriously consider a\ntrade school. Trade school studies can typically be completed in one to two\nyears. The savings has been estimated to be as much as $75,000 compared to a\nfour-year degree. You will also have a two-year early entry into the workforce.\nOn average you’ll earn $10,000 to $15,000 less than average college graduates\nbut you’ll have less debt and you might even have better job security. Your job\nas an electrician, plumber, machinist, pharmacy technician, dental hygienist\nand many others will keep you in the work force as long as you want to\nwork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m grateful I had the opportunity to\ncomplete a college degree and beyond. I wanted to and it’s worked out great for\nme. A college education is a very rewarding option for many of America’s young\nadults but not everybody. Think about it. Make a plan. Talk to others. Don’t\njust arbitrarily go into debt. If you have a dream and a passion that a college\ndegree will help you fulfill then you won’t feel so bad paying off debt. If you\nare clueless about how you will use your college degree then sit down with\nsomeone and talk about your life, your goals and your best avenue of achieving\nthem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s your life and your future. Make\nthe best of it and happy graduation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Glenn Mollette Everyone looks forward to graduation. For the high school senior it seemed like the day would never come. The college graduate breathes a sigh of relief that… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}