Millennials doing worse than expected after college

Photo credit: head4success.com

Cosmopolitan.com conducted a survey where they asked around 800 twenty-somethings whether their post-college lives were better or worse than what they had expected. The majority of those surveyed — 73% of women and 53% of men — felt that they were doing worse than expected in their careers, savings, or living situations:

Most Millennials Are Doing Worse Than Expected After College (cosmopolitan.com)

Boomerang Kids: A Photo Essay

Photo credit: Damon Casarez

A few months ago, I wrote a post on a New York Times piece about millennials moving back in with their parents after graduating college. While my post focused on the article’s text, the article also contained a collection of photographs featuring young adults who were living in their parents’ homes again:

“Hi Mom, I’m Home!” (nytimes.com)

The photographer, Damon Cesarez, was inspired to take these photos by his own experience of moving back in with his parents because of student loan debt. Each photo lists its subject’s student loan debt, along with their names, ages, hometowns, degrees, career goals, current jobs, and quotes from their interviews.

Is living with your parents a wise career decision?

Photo credit: Time.com

Is moving back in with your parents after graduating college actually a wise career decision? That’s the question that this New York Times article poses:

It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave (nytimes.com)

The article profiles millennials who returned to their parents’ houses for reasons such as career indecision, student loan debt, and inability to find a job that paid enough. But Adrianne Smith, a 28-year old graduate, was making over $60,000 a year as a behavioral analyst. So why did she move back home?

Student becomes homeless to afford college

Photo credit: Jake Stevens

Jake Stevens is a 19-year-old mechanical engineering student at Kettering University. In order to afford his college tuition, he has eliminated an expense that most of us would consider a necessity: housing.

Homeless college student ditches housing to afford tuition (finance.yahoo.com)

So where does he sleep? In the computer lab, at a friend’s house, at his fraternity. His program alternates three-month periods of schooling with three-month periods of full-time employment, and when he’s working, his employer provides him with free housing.

Is the cost of college hurting millennials?

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Is a college degree — and the debt that comes with it — hurting millennials? Here’s an article from Main Street that discusses how millennials are struggling to be financially independent because of advances in technology, a globalized labor force, and student loan debt:

What’s Causing Our Millennials to Fail at Becoming Adults (mainstreet.com)

It’s common to hear of millennials’ financial struggles: how they’re burdened with student loans to pay off, how they’re unemployed or underemployed, and how they’re putting off long-term commitments — like buying a house or starting a family — that previous generations were able to do much sooner.

Grad student lives in van to avoid debt

Photo credit: Ken Ilgunas

How far would you go to avoid student debt? For one graduate student, the answer to that question was to live in a van:

Duke Grad Student Secretly Lived In a Van to Escape Loan Debt (finance.yahoo.com)

After struggling to pay his undergraduate loans, Ken Ilgunas wanted to return to school but didn’t want to accumulate any more debt. So after he enrolled at Duke University, he bought a $1,500 1994 Ford Econoline, parked it in a remote parking lot, and lived there for two years.