Can Student Loan Debt Ruin Relationships?

Description – This article is about perspective of young adults, who are in huge student debt, about love romance and marriage.

Yes it can. “What about the student loan?” Today this question is asked by many female young adults while on dates and mates. As per a recent survey done by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, almost 37 million individuals are in great trouble due to student debt. 27% of this population has past outstanding balances. Unfortunately, student loan debt can be disastrous for a new marriage or budding romance.

Some instances

1. What she thinks - Alicia, a 26 years old female graduate of Houston University presently has around 60,000 dollar in student debt. According to her, one should be in good emotional and financial state before getting involved in any serious relation or married. She believes that it is the huge student loan due to which American women have become serious about making a robust career. She is single until now.
2. What he thinks - Another student, Timothy, who is presently in 25,000 dollar student debt, predicts that he can pay off the debt by paying about 400 dollar monthly for coming 5 years. He works in a water distributing organization and lives a frugal life. According to him, if a woman doesn’t desire to date him just because of his frugal lifestyle and his inability to afford a costly dining out every weekend, then also he has no problem. If someone really loves him, wants him, then she will definitely accept him as he is.
3. What they think - Another guy, Tony, is currently in 67,000 dollar student debt. He works for an engineering firm and earns enough to pay off his debt by next 5 years. But he wants to help her girlfriend who wants to get back to school and continue study. She has no debts. According to Tony, both he and his fiancé are frugal by nature and confident to manage every financial and personal issue by sticking on a strict budget.

Juggling dollars and relation

Unfortunately, today most young adults are striving to maintain a balance between their personal relations and personal finance (especially outstanding debts). While financial stability, better to say student debt, comes in the way to budding romance, then one must be very careful. Student debt may devastate romance and ruin marital life. However, such a debt can be consolidated or settled. But the thing is people in single status are struggling to pay off student debts, then what about the couples. This is a million dollar question. According to a reputed marriage counselor, the only thing couples argue about is money.

Student debt vs. mental stress

Most newly married young couples admit that debts, especially the student loan debts are the main point of stress in their life. They often conclude that one should not marry a person with huge debt. Even if the love is flawless, then also young adults want to wait till the debt is paid off to avoid stress in marital life. Exception is there, but that’s not the rule.

In conclusion, it can be said that although student debt may have bad impact on relation, yet it can be handled. The key to managing debts and thus personal life is to living a thrifty life at least until the debts are completely paid off.

About The Author

Jane Scott has been in the finance and insurance industry for over a decade. She presently works as a finance journalist for easyfinance.com.