College Debt: How to Make Yourself Unmarriageable at Age 21

Gary North

Aug. 25, 2010

This was posted by a man on my site. This man came to his senses in time.

I broke up with my girlfriend last week. She had a lot of what I look for in a marriage partner. She also $90,000 in college loans. She took those loans before she knew me, but when I met her, I didn't have this site and I didn't know to stay away. I became attached, and like many of the romantics, I wanted to believe that love conquers all, but lately I started having doubts. After hearing some of the horror stories on this forum, I became keen on seeing just how important a role finances would be playing in our future relationship.

I started noticing my resentment at having to pay for things, the dinners on me, the cab fares on me, the tickets are on me...etc. I'm paying not because she's cheap or selfish, but because she's broke, and she's going to be broke for a long time to come. Her loans are at 6.8% interest; she will have to pay $1036/month for the next ten years! That's if she can make all her payments. I doubt she can. Her masters is in teaching. She will be starting a low salary teaching job in the fall. That debt is going nowhere fast.

There were two things that sealed our fate. The first was that she decided to use the last of her loan money for a 3-week trip in Thailand with her girlfriends. They had always wanted to go and this might be there last chance before everyone started marrying off. I get that, but it didn't sit right with me. I'd be doing everything in my power to pay off that debt as fast as possible. I'd want to get ahead of it. She wanted high times in foreign lands.

The second thing was a lunch I had with my friend Tom. Tom is 50. Tom filed for bankruptcy this year. He too had those college loans, and after years of struggle, he had payed off most of the college loans, only to be buried in CC debt. He owed everyone money. He owed his family, his lawyer, his girlfriend, Im pretty sure even his dog was waiting for a check.

He explained that it all began with the student loans. He got behind one month and had to use the AMEX, and it just snowballed from there. He went through periods of deep despair fueled by the nagging feeling that he was worthless as a human being because he net worth was negative. This isn't true, but it's real hard to feel that way when the creditors keep calling and you owe everyone close to you money. You start seeing it in everyone's eyes. "Where's my money?" He described it as a boat anchor. He had trouble allowing himself to feel happy. Treating himself with generosity became an act of selfishness. "I cant get a massage, that money could be used to pay debt." I saw my girlfriends future. I saw my future.

I am dealing with the pain of loss and the guilt of abandonment. It will become less severe over time. Every time I want to call her I think the same thing, 90 grand at 6.8. No thanks.

Another site member added this:

Sorry to hear that. You did the right thing. While just out of college, I chose not to invest more time in a relationship because the woman had $60K of college debt and did not have employable skills to show for the money and time investment. I resented the fact that I worked my tail off in college to earn my engineering degree while while she changed majors 3 times before finding one that yielded a balance between partying and studying.

I don't think that you are alone in doing what you did. Last year, I attended a career fair for the trade schools with my girlfriend. There were lots of recent college graduates who could not find full time jobs or jobs within their major and were attending these trade schools with their parents. I overheard a couple of mothers say something to the effect to their daughters "I sent you to expensive private school and you could'nt find a suitable husband"? By suitable the mothers meant someone with a high income and employable skills. The assumption was that the man came from money because he attended a prestigous university. Apparently, in these two cases, the prospects had there own student loans and could not payoff two students at the same time and chose instead to pass up these women and opt to date high school graduates that did not go to college and have no debt. These women who went to college and incurred the debt, are now back at home and the parents do not view this as a positive development and now realize that pumpkin needs to support herself and that was the reason for the exploration of the trade schools.

Consider the fact that over half of the first time marriages end in divorce especially if you marry in your early 20's. It also sounds to me from your post that you girfriend does not understand the concept of thrift which would be a source of friction between the two of you. I would look into dating some women who did not attend college. They tend not to have developed expensive tastes as yet. I think that you will also find that they intellectual difference between the college woman and the high school graduade is miniscule.

I am the only person I know who ever wrote an article published in a professional academic journal on why a wise Ph.D. should marry a woman who did not go to college: "A Note on the Opportunity Cost of Marriage," Journal of Political Economy (1968). I took my own advice in 1972.