Call Me Maybe When Your School Loan Is Paid In Full

The increasing debt load of college graduates has affected young people's lives in untold ways, from career choices to living arrangements. Now add another impact on a key part of young adult life: dating and marriage.

Rachel Bingham, an art teacher in Portland, Maine, learned this a few years back, when a guy broke it off after four months of a budding relationship. Among other reasons, he cited her $80,000 in student loan debt.

"He said it scared him," she recalls, "that it really made him anxious. And he just did not want to take on my responsibility."

That made Bingham angry because she had never asked for his help. She says she has been very responsible, diligently making her loan payments.

"I was really floored at the time, because I just didn't consider that as a reason for someone to not be with someone else," she says. "I felt it was very shallow."

Bingham is now engaged to a man who's not scared off by her debt, but it turns out her ex-boyfriend was far from alone. The issue recently came up in a letter to an advice column at Nerve.com, a pop culture dating website. This time it was a woman wary of a serious relationship because her boyfriend has $150,000 in debt, mostly student loans.

"He was explaining his money stress to me," the woman wrote, "and I started crying because I saw the future I want falling away."

She wrote that she felt "embarrassed" about being so "selfish," and signed her letter, "Am I Being Awful?"

Caitlin Caven, who writes the site's Miss Information column, assured the woman that she's right to take a hard look at things. She suggested that a responsible approach to repayment is more important than the boyfriend's actual — admittedly staggering — amount of debt. Caven says readers also weighed in.

"There were a lot of people saying, 'Dump him, get out,' " she says. "And then there was a lot of backlash, saying, 'Hey, that's unfair. You guys are clearly not thinking about how student debt works in this country. So many people are in debt like that, that you can't just get rid of a good relationship because of it.' "

Caven advised the woman to keep her finances separate and consider a prenuptial agreement.

'An Impediment To Moving Forward'

When NPR asked about this issue on its Facebook page, many couples said they've avoided legal marriage so one partner wouldn't be liable for the other one's debt. In fact, responsibility for student loans does not transfer to a spouse. But, practically speaking?

"Well, once you're married, you're basically responsible for it at some level," says Bill Driscoll, a financial planner in Massachusetts. He sees the impact of student loan debt on his 30-something clients.

"It's causing uncertainty and tension," he says, "because it's an impediment to them moving forward on a lot of fronts."

Those include having a child or saving for college, saving for retirement and the biggie: buying a house.

"If they go to buy a home," says Driscoll, "and they've got $65,000 in student debt, that's going to undermine a lot of the possibilities for getting financing."

Driscoll says half of his clients don't see eye to eye when it comes to spending versus saving, so he advises hashing out a compromise plan. Mostly, he counsels couples to talk about financial problems early. But that can be hard to do.

Feeling A Stigma

"I just usually wait until it comes up and kind of clench my teeth," says
Craig Pfeister, a 29-year-old craftsman who makes guitars in Denver. He has north of $100,000 in student loans, and has grown used to the reaction that gets from dates.

"Generally, it starts with an awkward look, like, 'What have I gotten myself into?' " he says. Pfeister has come to realize that he's more comfortable dating women who also have lots of student debt.

"We can kind of laugh about it," he says, "like we're both owned by Sallie Mae. If they already have in their mind they'll have this debt for their entire life, when they hear about mine, it's just, 'Oh, you, too?' "

And if Pfeister ends up marrying more debt? Sure, it would add to his financial stress. But, he says, at least the stigma would not be just on him.

Source: NPR

I’m in debt. How much should I give?

One very common question I get in workshops and through e-mail is how much to give while trying to get out of debt.

Before answering the question, it’s important to understand biblical teaching on generosity. The tithe, or 10 percent of one’s income, is the historical biblical starting point of generosity. The first example of tithing can be found in the book of Genesis which was well before introduction of the Mosaic Law. By the same token, since every positive New Testament example of generosity goes beyond 10 percent (read about Zacchaeus in Luke 19 and the poor widow Luke 12), it’s fair to say that the tithe is not the intended stopping point of biblical generosity.

When it comes to giving while in debt, one issue to consider is whether the person asking the question is in such dire straights that they literally cannot provide for their family while giving at the level of a tithe.

I have met people whose finances have been so devastated by a divorce, an extended period of unemployment, medical problems, or other issues that they truly could not afford to give. In those cases, they should be on the receiving end of other people’s generosity until they get back on their feet.

The more common situation, though, is one where someone has taken on a load of debt through lifestyle spending or unwise investing. They now recognize their mistakes, want to get out of debt, and figure they could be out of debt much faster if they gave less for a while. For anyone in that situation, here are three ideas to pray and think about.

3 Ideas to Pray About

First, before deciding to give less than a tithe, consider all other options for freeing up money to put toward your debts.

Proverbs 3:27-28 says, “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow’—when you now have it with you.”

A good paraphrase of those verses is: “How serious are you?” Could you accelerate the payoff of your debts while still tithing if you went from a two-car household to a one-car household? What about going without your cable television subscription or even your home Internet connection? Or how about a temporary fast from buying new clothes? Take a hard look at every single line item in your budget.

When I read the depth and breadth of biblical teaching on generosity, starting with God’s instruction to make generosity our highest financial priority (Proverbs 3:9) and including the example made of the Macedonians, who in their “extreme poverty” pleaded for “the privilege of sharing” (2 Corinthians 8:2-4), it seems only right that other areas of lifestyle spending would be reconsidered before reconsidering the tithe.

My second suggestion is to pray for discernment . I have met numerous people who continued to give at least 10 percent while they were deeply in debt simply because they sensed that was what God was encouraging them to do.

Most recently, a couple told me their story of starting their marriage with $50,000 of debt and continuing to tithe during the six and a half years it took them to pay it all off. The woman acknowledged that it wasn’t always easy.

“Sometimes I would see our year-end giving statement, and I would say, ‘Gee, we could have gotten out of debt so much faster if we had put that money toward our debts.’” But they will never forget sending in their last debt payment. “It was amazing,” she said. “We felt like it was a hard road we had traveled, but we did it, and we did it in a God-honoring way.”

I have also met people who have sensed God’s grace, feeling very much at peace with the idea of giving less than a full tithe for a season, which brings me to my third suggestion.

If you do decide to give less than a full tithe, at very least give an amount that constitutes a choice gift. That admittedly subjective standard goes all the way back to Cain and Abel. The spirit of biblical generosity is to give a meaningful gift—a costly gift, not a token gift.

Credits: Matt Bell, Christian Science Monitor