Avoiding the Entitlement Mentality with Student Loans

It’ s one of the most common debts that almost every household has – some huge, some relatively small… but it’s also something that you will find is pretty common amongst almost every household – it’s student loans.

Kids graduate high school and they move on to college – after all, it’s what society teaches them to do. If a child mentions that they want to take a break, they are faced with 20 questions from parents, family .. and even friends.

Parents are proud of their children when they can tell other friends and family that their children are going to be going to college for 4 years – they are majoring in Electrical Engineering. Perhaps, teaching – perhaps they are focused on being a math major.   

No matter what their focus, the commonality between everyone who pursues college beyond high school (even if it’s not immediately) is that they accumulate the crushing debt of student loans. From the age of just 18, student loans are pushed to graduating high school students as their way of pursuing that college education.

For the next few years, they change majors, change colleges, stop attending and break… go back to college, and in some cases, finish – but they are broke for the next 20-30 years trying to pay off that student loan debt.

That debt of student loans sets kids up for failure before they even have a good start in life… sad to say, I’m in my late 30’s and although we don’t have loans, most of our friends do and I hear them gripe about their loans every week.

I see them pin articles on Pinterest that’ll {hopefully} help inspire them to get motivated to pay them off quicker.. focus on them a little harder.

Just last week I was listening to talk radio – and the upcoming election discussion… and the generation of people that feels that college should be paid for. Loans should be more easily forgiven.. interest rates should be less.. after all, it should be more affordable for people to go to school.  

Why should people have to suffer and payback their loans?  After all, it’s just not fair.

What we Do Know

I think we ALL know that the cost of higher education is extraordinary – tuition has grown to over 79% between 2003 and 2013 – it is outpacing every other expense in society today (Source HERE).  To pay for that rise in tuition, students are taking out record amounts of loan.

The average 2015 graduate with student loan debt will pay back over $35,000. (Source)

And guess what? That’s just an average. I listen to the Dave Ramsey show Podcast almost daily and hear people call in … some with over $100,000 in student loans – for a degree in liberal arts, history or even mathematics.

We KNOW that the cost of college is rising – and we can argue about it all day until we’re blue in the face.   But at the end of the day, arguing about why it’s going up isn’t going to pay off your existing loans, or even make your college less right now. It’s not going to reduce the loan you just took out, and it’s not going to forgive any of the loans you have.

The Reality of it All

Before I was staying at home with my own kids, I worked in the field of Army Recruiting.

One of my main responsibilities was administering the ASVAB (Armed Services, Vocational Aptitude Battery) for juniors and seniors in high schools across Arizona, New Mexico and El Paso. It was a challenge to say the least. After the test had been taken and results came in, what was important was communicating their strengths and weaknesses in various areas– mechanical, arts, science, and more. 

Our goal was to help them find a career field that corresponded to their interest and skill level.  If that required a Vocational Education, it would {hopefully} help them see that. It was important for them to see where they had the strongest skill so they could pinpoint a path for post-high school graduation – no matter what their career plans were.

What I found was astonishing… and scary – considering some of these kids were graduating, you would think they would have more of an idea of what they wanted to pursue. But that wasn’t the case. It was entirely the opposite. 

I remember interpreting the results at a rather large high school (Chandler High), where it took an entire day, in a huge auditorium, with at least 8-9 class periods to reach ALL of the students that tested. Of all of those students, a mere 9 were forthright enough to speak up and explain their post-high school plans.

Of those 9, their plans included going to Arizona State University.  When asked what their speciality or focus would be, they were silent.   They had been given guidance from their counselor and parents that college was the next step, they didn’t know what they were going to do there. But their parents said that they needed to take out loans to pay.

This is real, folks.

We have kids going into college with no idea how loans work. They have little knowledge on how Federal Aid works – they know grants are available, as well as scholarships — but they have no idea that grants are ROLLED into loans.

They just know that college is expensive … but it’s the next “step” that they are conditioned to believe is necessary. Forget the fact that down the road, those loans will be stuck with them year in and year out.

Let me just say this – because I think it’s important to keep in mind, not just for those of us who have kids, but especially for those of us who have been in their shoes.

Student loan debt is serious business.  It’s a HUGE undertaking. It can set a young student up for success or failure from the onset. Your student loan debt is 100% your fault – nobody can force you to go to school. But if you do, you are the only person responsible for the loans you accrue while attending.

Some people have this idealistic picture that their loan will give them a big degree ~ this degree will get them an amazing job (after all, for many it’s impossible to get a “good” job without a degree – though I could probably beg to differ there).  You are the one that chose your degree path. You are the one who believed that the loan would get you a huge pay raise or better job.

In the end, you are the one that believed those that said that student loan debt is an investment in yourself.  To some extent .. that can hold some truth, not entirely though :)

You are the reason you have student loan debt. It’s completely your doing, and as a result, it’s your responsibility to pay it back. .. and certainly not the responsibility of anyone else.

I’m not Judging You at All

Before someone points back at me and mentions that I’m throwing accusations – let me say that I was once in the SAME spot as many others. I did not have parents that saved for my college…  I did not have parents who even went to college. In high school, our counselor pushed us all towards the college route. The military route was not something that was highly favored by my counselor or parents.

I’m thankful I did the military route though. What a great experience it was.

I did NOT graduate with a six-figure student loan .. but I did finish my Masters with student loan debt. My husband, likewise .. finished his schooling with debt too. I expected to walk out of school into a profession that could easily pay for my loan payments … except… that didn’t happen. 

One thing we didn’t do, was expect someone to pay for our loans or forgive our loans – we opted for Military Service, and through the GI Bill and reenlistment bonuses, we served. We served a second term. After we were done on Active Duty, we re-enlisted again for the Army Reserves.

We sacrificed being near family to do this – going overseas, deploying in a time of conflict, and putting our family on “hold” while we worked a job that was all day, every day, for years.  We got up at 4 a.m. on unmentionable occasions. We set up A-Frame tents in 115 degree heat. We went to the field for 30 days at a time in the middle of the summer, to places like El Paso, and Roswell New Mexico. Other places like Douglas, and Safford. 

We didn’t get to shower sometimes for a week at a time, sometimes more.  My husband was gone for the first 2 1/2 years our 2nd son was born to serve in Iraq – a place that makes this 117 Arizona heat look like a tropical vacation. It was NOT easy.  But it was our duty, and our responsibility.

Your willingness to accept responsibility for taking out loans is one of the first steps in accepting responsibility and paying back that debt.

Moving Forward and Getting out of that Debt

We talk about saving on this blog – making small changes, cutting out Starbucks, learning to live with less stuff in order to pay off more.  But in the end, one thing you will likely have to do is hustle a little harder.

Cutting your budget, pinching pennies, eliminating Starbucks runs, and avoiding Target might be a great start – but they aren’t going to make too much of a dent in your student loan debt.  Making more is obviously going to get you much farther than anything else – paired with your ability to live under your means will be the most significant way to dig yourself out.

Right now there is a small percentage of people rooting for those who are advocating FREE college, and “cancel student loan debt” .. some of them even under the assumption that it’s only fair that it be FREE.    Newsflash:  There is no such thing as FREE college, and more government intervention is definitely not what we need. 

Education is expensive.  The market for jobs and professions isn’t always going to be amazing.  Having the entitlement mentality that you deserve mercy and deserve something because you made a decision without thinking it thoroughly is not anyone else’s responsibility but yours.

That feeling of entitlement is giving you the chance to escape responsibility for your actions instead of your willingness to accept responsibility for your decisions that led you to where you are.

I hated having a student loan payment for all those years. But it was my responsibility. Once I paid off mine, I hated having to see my husband’s loan debt. But I had no choice – after all, we were married. Even though we despised making that payment, we took full responsibility for it.

Empowerment versus Entitlement

In the case of student loans, we are empowered when we adopt the attitude:  I committed to school for several years and I take full responsibility for paying back my debt for which I am obligated.

We are entitled when we believe:  I shouldn’t have to pay back these loans, the cost of college was ridiculous and I it’s not fair that I have to pay back this obscene debt when I can’t even find a job in that field.