The average student loan borrower owes $28,565 in student loan debt, and many of them will be paying off this debt for well over a decade.
For Americans trying to move forward with their finances after college, monthly student loan payments year after year can be a drag. Buying a house or starting a family in your mid-to-late twenties isn’t as easy as it once was, and student loan debt plays a major factor in that.
How desperate are borrowers to move on from their student loan debt?
LendEDU posed a series of questions to 1,000 adult Americans with student loan debt to find out. Respondents had to decide if they would go through with each hypothetical scenario to have their student loan debt completely forgiven.
How Far Would Student Loan Borrowers Go to Have Their Student Loan Debt Forgiven?
1,000 adult Americans with some amount of student loan debt were posed 11 hypothetical scenarios to find out.
Each question was structured like this:
Would you {insert scenario here} if it meant all of your student loan debt was forgiven?
Give up the use of social media for five years
- 68% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 32% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up your right to vote in the 2020 presidential election
- 62% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 38% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up all streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, etc.) for life
- 60% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 40% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up internet access for one year
- 55% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 45% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up the use of all payment methods besides cash (credit/debit, mobile pay, etc.) for life
- 52% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 48% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up the use of Google Search for life
- 51% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 49% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up being vegan for life or have to become vegan for life
- 49% of respondents answered “Yes”
- 51% of respondents answered “No”
Give up the use of a smartphone for life (can still use flip phone/standard cell phone)
- 35% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 65% of borrowers answered “No”
Enlist to fight in a hypothetical World War 3
- 30% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 70% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up the ability to travel anywhere on vacation for the next 30 years
- 24% of borrowers answered “Yes”
- 76% of borrowers answered “No”
Give up hot showers for the next 25 years
- 17% of respondents answered “Yes”
- 83% of respondents answered “No”
Tips For Managing Student Loan Debt
As evident by the data from this survey, student loan debt proves to be an immense burden on so many American consumers.
To help manage this burden, LendEDU provides a few tips below on how to efficiently handle student loan debt.
Refinance Your Student Loans
Refinancing your student loans is something that should be considered if you believe that your current financial health will lead to you getting a better student loan interest rate or a more friendly repayment term. Further, you can actually refinance your student loans more than once if you feel that doing it again will lead to even more favorable repayment conditions.
Both federal and private student loans can be refinanced, and there are a variety of lenders who will work with you on this. ELFI is one student loan refinance lender that can offer competitive rates.
Get Creative With Student Loan Repayment
Sometimes, to pay off your student loans fast you need to think outside the box and get creative with your repayment strategy. For example, you could consider making bi-weekly payments instead of just one per month so that by year’s end you wind up making 13 months worth of payments instead of just 12.
Or, you could focus on repaying your high-interest student loans first so that you get those out of the way while saving some cash on interest in the process.
If Things Get Tough, Contact Your Lender
If you find that you are really struggling with your monthly student loan payments, you could always reach out to your student loan lender to see if an agreement can be struck that will either reduce your monthly minimum payment amount or even place you in a grace period.
Student loan lenders, like College Ave, Earnest, and Citizens Bank, may certainly be willing to help you through your tough financial times so it can’t hurt to pick up the phone and open a dialogue.
Methodology
All data found within this report derives from an online survey commissioned by LendEDU and conducted by polling company Pollfish. In total, 1,000 adult Americans ages 18 and up with student loan debt were polled.
Respondents were only allowed to proceed to the survey if they were 18 or older, from the United States, and had some amount of student loan debt. The first two criterion were found through Pollfish’s filtering features that allowed us to filter on both age and location. The last criterion was found through a screener question that respondents had to answer correctly to proceed.
This poll was conducted on January 10, 2020. Respondents were asked to answer each question truthfully and to the best of their abilities.
See more of LendEDU’s Research