Does Student Loan Debt Make People Less Happy and Healthy?

Career College Central Summary:

People with student debt report worse health and greater financial stress long after they finish their degree, a new study from Gallup shows.
The survey looked at 11,000 students who have graduated college since 1990 and found that people who took out more than $50,000 in loans rate their physical and financial status at least 10 points lower than their debt-free peers.
The findings offer a window into the deeply personal impact debt may have on students across the country, who are taking out more and larger loans than ever.
Some research suggests that college is nonetheless worth its rising ticket price and that graduating doubles the hourly wages of workers.
It’s also true that the vast majority of students are not facing six-figure unpaid education bills.
Eleven percent of Gallup respondents had $50,000 or more in debt, and broader data sets indicate that somewhere between 7 percent and 13 percent (PDF) of the almost 40 million student borrowers across the country have debts in that range.
To jump to the conclusion that student loans ruin lives, however, would be an oversimplification.
The study warned that it’s not necessarily the high debt that made this group less healthy or happy.
Other things that make people take out loans, like their family’s wealth or the type of college they attend, “may be the same factors that influence graduates’ future well-being,” Gallup said.
The study also doesn’t account for people who took out loans but left college without a degree, a group that’s about four times as likely to hold student debt today as in 1989, according to a Brookings Institution study.

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