It turns out that getting hitched, having kids, and buying a house lose some of their appeal when you’re saddled with upward of $100,000 in student loans.
A recent survey of new lawyers by the American Bar Association quantifies the widespread impact that educational debt is having on the life decisions they make, from the jobs they take to whether and when they start a family. More than half of the survey respondents—56%—said they had postponed the decision to buy a house or opted to forgo buying altogether as a result of their debts. And 29% said they had either decided to postpone getting married or not get married because of debt. When it comes to having a children, 48% said their debt prompted them to delay that or decide to not have children altogether.
