Higher Debt-ucation

Like me, most people have a pre-conceived notion in their mind of what retirement will look like.

For some, it may be an oceanfront condo with close proximity to a number of challenging golf links. For others, it may be more bucolic, perhaps a large tract of land in America’s heartland or in a remote wooded area.

For a career pessimist like yours truly, I see my retirement as thus: my children returning to home base as long-term boarders after running up astronomical college tuition debt and me working the graveyard shift as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

I mention this familial doomsday scenario because my youngest daughter who’s a high-school senior has applied to 11 colleges and universities (and no that’s not a misprint) including despite my objections, a private Jesuit school in New England  whose annual cost per student could probably ease the current sequester.

My oldest, for those keeping score at home, has one more year at her pricey university of choice, so for now, I’ll continue to live in my lovely home overlooking a large mortgage.

Next weekend we have secured an inexpensive hotel room near the above-mentioned New England college (we got it via Hotwire, so not everything will drain what little retirement savings I have!) and will take the requisite tour and attend the parents’ meetings.

Despite a 4.0 GPA, she will, in all likelihood, not receive a penny of scholarship money. An insider told me that had she been 6-foot-5 and 340 lbs. and able to protect a quarterback’s blind side, the school in question would have gladly tendered her all the scholarship money she needed.

But the problem of college debt is far more widespread than just at Chez Carlino.

Last week the Federal Reserve came out with a report that the national amount of student debt, which is roughly $1 trillion is beginning to impact the U.S., economy – specifically by diminishing the number of young college graduates who want to buy homes.

And there’s not much optimism that it will turn around anytime soon. With the number of student borrowers approaching about 40 million – including more than 40 percent of those about 25, the average balance on their loans has risen to $25,000. Nearly 20 percent of the student borrowers are delinquent on their payments by at least three months.

Unfortunately, those that are overleveraged and on the precipice of defaulting will not qualify for things such as home loans, as just 4 percent of those with student debt were given a mortgage last year.

I’ll allow far brighter minds than mine come up with relief solutions. The ideal fix of course would be a resurgent economy, but until that happens, I’m keeping their bedrooms in clean and livable just in case.

And I’m also hanging on to that Wal-Mart application.