Millennials valued paying off student loans even more than buying a house or starting a family.

That’s a finding on student loan debt from a survey by personal finance company SoFi of over 1,000 Americans aged from 22 to 35.

Student loan debt payoff a top priority

While 35% of millennials thought their topmost priority was to pay off the school debt, 25% felt buying a house ranked higher. However, 17% gave top billing to saving for retirement, 15% to start a family, and 4% to starting to invest.

Completely paying down this liability is so important to millennials that they celebrate the fact with a party or taking a vacation.

An enormous burden

Statistics reveal that the total national student debt is more than $1.5 trillion. On average, loan taker students who graduated in 2018 had $29,800 outstanding student loan debt.

Moreover, the staggering student loan debt load is a pointer to other, connected problems:

• The rising cost of higher education
• Higher default rates on student loans
• The rate and quantum of interest collected
• Ruined credit ratings
• Garnished wages and social security benefits
• Denial of driving licenses
• Mental health problems

An article in the Harvard Business Review said the country’s student loan burden was of crisis proportions. It had a snowball effect, and adversely impacted the sale of houses, cars, appliances, and furniture. By 2021 the amount of national student debt will burgeon to an estimated $2 trillion.

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