Most College Graduates Returning Home to Live with Parents
By: Mick, January 2nd, 2007
In a recent article from Money Magazine Editor Jean Chatzky, the concept of “adultolescence” is introduced and discussed in some detail. According to the article, two in three college graduates will return home after graduation to live with their parents. Chatzky explains the phenomenon as follows:
How did adultolescence come about? Blame rising college costs and rampant consumerism. Today the average graduate emerges with nearly $20,000 in student loans and $4,000 in credit-card debt. Meanwhile, she faces a world in which rents have skyrocketed over recent decades but starting salaries, adjusted for inflation, have dropped 17%. She can’t cut it, so she falls back on the bank of Mom and Dad for support in the form of either cash or an invitation to move back home.
This is the same rampant consumerism that is contributing to the erosion of personal wealth and the accumulation of unmanageable personal debt in the U.S. It will be interesting to see how this phenomenon plays out over the next decade as baby boomers begin retiring just as their children and grandchildren are returning home in need of a place to stay in some help paying down existing debt.
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