How Student Loans Are Killing Homeownership

As you’ve probably heard, Millennials just aren’t buying houses like young people used to.

Many iterations of this story have already been told: They’re living with roommates (parental or otherwise), renting rather than buying, and blowing their paychecks on fancy brunches instead of bungalows. Partly to blame is the fact that housing prices have rapidly outpaced incomes since 1980. But there’s another trend that’s magnified the effects of this: An increase in college attendance. That otherwise positive development has triggered mounting student debt, thanks to a spike in tuition costs. In 2015, students who took out student loans graduated with 70 percent more debt than those just 10 years earlier, racking up an average of $34,000 that some are fated to pay off for decades.