Grimm future of our youth

Introduction to the current situation

It is strange to see that about 60% adults are a struggle for financial independence between ages 18 and 34. Considering the situation faced today, with what people faced 40 years back, the situation is terrible. A threefold rise in the inflation-adjusted tuition since the 1980s has been observed at public universities. The average cost was $12,837 annually in today's inflation adjusted prices for attending a private college in 1976-77 around thirty years ago. Attending a public university has an average cost of $11,354 today, having the same burden of affording a state college today which is equivalent to the cost of a 1970s private college.

Spending difference

The typical 25- to 34-year-old male with a high school degree earns a little more than $29,000 today, while he earned more than $42,000 in 1972, adjusted to inflation today. The massive student loan debt combined with the increase in credit-card debt is resulting in the payment of debt with 25 cents from every earned. Keeping in mind that many of this age group is home owners, most of the income goes in the payment of credit cards, primarily student loans and car loans. The young generation may thing that life is sweet having a new apartment and a college degree, they need to think again, as it is this over spending that will make them the “Generation Debt”. From a financial standpoint is not pretty if you are in your 20s or 30s.

A crippling financial situation that cannot overcome by the generation which we now have of the young people, at a time when student loans, soaring property values, rising health care, costs, and depressed wages is becoming more of a problem than ever before. Not much money was taken out of the paychecks of ...