The Magazine

The Anti-Dowry

A complaint about our student loan system.

Dec 16, 2002, Vol. 8, No. 14 • By ALLAN CARLSON
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IF A GOVERNMENT set out slowly to strangle the family life of its people, what would be the best tactic? One diabolical approach would be to saddle young adults in their early 20s with massive debt. Surely, this would delay marriages, as potential spouses shied away from this perverse form of anti-dowry. Even more surely, this tactic would push back childbearing for a decade or more, as potential mothers and fathers put off having children until their debt collectors were satisfied. Such delays would mean more infertility, smaller families, and empty or never-formed homes.

This is precisely the policy being pursued by the U.S. government, in alliance with the nation's colleges, universities, and other post-secondary schools. It's called "Guaranteed Student Loans." In 2002, the average new college graduate carried an estimated debt of $22,000, up from $8,200 in 1991. An average couple that contemplated marriage on graduation would calculate a joint debt of $44,000, a remarkably heavy burden under which to start a new home. According to the State Public Interest Research Group's (PIRG) Higher Education Project, 39 percent of new graduates with loans carry an "unmanageable debt," defined as requiring payments of 8 percent or more of the borrower's monthly income. Even in 1997, when the burden was significantly less, one survey conducted by Nellie Mae (the nation's largest non-profit provider of student loans) reported that 15 percent of graduates had delayed getting married because of their student debt load; 22 percent had delayed childbearing, up from 12 percent in 1991. The figures today are presumably higher.

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