‘Paying for the Rest of My Life’: How Student Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials
After earning a graduate degree from Syracuse University in 2009, Nick Shekeryk faced a total of $93,000 in student loan debt.
Then, last year, he accomplished something that tens of millions of borrowers from his generation haven’t been able to: He paid it all off.
His student loan journey had been anything but smooth up to that point. For over a decade, due to his high balance, monthly payments were eating up a considerable portion of his budget. Because of loan interest, he could barely make a dent in his principal, and couldn’t put money aside for savings or investments. The burden of debt was affecting his relationships, making it impossible to plan for the future. “I was prepared to deal with it for the rest of my life,” Shekeryk said.
Well into their adulthood, millennials are finding it impossible to achieve the financial milestones of their parents or grandparents. A 2018 study published by the Center for Household Financial Stability found that those born in the 1980s face the greatest risk of becoming the “lost generation” for accumulating wealth. Young adults today face declining mobility, decades of stagnant wages and broader economic uncertainty. Millennials also have the highest debt burden, making them especially susceptible to financial instability.
After meeting with a financial adviser in 2020, Shekeryk and his wife decided to take advantage of the pandemic-era pause on student loan interest and payments, and threw every spare penny at knocking down the balance to zero. “I’m fortunate to be