{"id":6244,"date":"2025-04-26T16:46:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalideas.org.au\/blog\/mental-health\/the-impact-of-carrying-student-loan-debt-on-your-health.html"},"modified":"2025-04-26T16:46:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:46:34","slug":"the-impact-of-carrying-student-loan-debt-on-your-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/mental-health-and-wellbeing\/the-impact-of-carrying-student-loan-debt-on-your-health.html","title":{"rendered":"The Impact of Carrying Student Loan Debt on Your Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The majority of Americans with student debt are struggling to pay it back, according to a 2024 survey from ELVTR, an online education platform (via CNBC). And not only are 63% of the 2,000 respondents having difficulty making payments on their student loans, but more than half of the participants\u2026<\/p>\n

The Biden administration has forgiven nearly 2% of all student loan debt as of September 2024 (via CNBC). Yet for most, this won’t come close to canceling the amount they owe. The average student attending a public university takes out $32,880 in loans in order to receive a Bachelor’s degree, according to the Education Data Initiative.<\/p>\n

And experts say that the cost of college continues to rise. Black students have even more difficulty affording their loan payments (via CNBC). Four years after graduation, they owe $53,000 on average, while the average white borrower owes $28,000.<\/p>\n

The health impacts of student loans<\/h2>\n

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According to the ELVTR survey, this debt goes beyond financial burden. Researchers found that 54% of borrowers say that their student loan debt is impacting their mental health. Of that number, 56% have experienced anxiety and 32% have experienced depression because of the amount they owe. Another 20% suffer from insomnia and 17% have experienced panic attacks.<\/p>\n

And instead of feeling confident in their decision to borrow money for a college degree, 59% of respondents say that they either regret borrowing the money or doubt whether it was a good idea. That leaves just 41% who feel sure about their investment.<\/p>\n

Since 54.7% of American adults experiencing a mental health disorder don’t get treatment\u00a0(via Mental Health America), this toll on mental health could have disastrous effects. More than 10% of those with mental illness are uninsured, while 42% said they couldn’t afford the care they needed.<\/p>\n

Roman Peskin, the founder and CEO of ELVTR, says that while loan forgiveness is a good plan, it’s only a bandage on a larger problem (via CNBC). As the cost of higher education is increasing more quickly than inflation, the student loan debt situation is going to get worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The majority of Americans with student debt are struggling to pay it back, according to a 2024 survey from ELVTR, an online education platform (via CNBC). And not only are 63% of the 2,000 respondents having difficulty making payments on their student loans, but more than half of the participants\u2026 The Biden administration has forgiven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-and-research","category-mental-health-and-wellbeing"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7010,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244\/revisions\/7010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackrainbow.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}