“Not Nearly as Bad”: Social Comparisons and the Debt Experience

Author:

Bryer Ellen1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Abstract

Despite the growing awareness of the role that families play in the experience of student borrowing, debt is still understood as a private experience. As student debt becomes more widespread, individuals are increasingly likely to know others with student loans, yet questions remain about how others—friends, acquaintances, and colleagues—may shape the way student borrowers make sense of their debt. This study draws on interviews with recent master’s degree recipients to examine how young adults understand their educational debt in relation to others. The author finds that borrowers are enmeshed in “debt dense” social networks that both normalize debt and facilitate evaluative social comparisons against others that accentuate borrowers’ own efforts and responsibility. These findings demonstrate a role for occupational and educational social networks in shaping borrowers’ experience of indebtedness but also suggest limits to framing student debt as a collective problem.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

General Social Sciences

Reference68 articles.

1. American Bar Association, Young Lawyers Division. 2020. “2020 Law School Student Loan Debt Survey Report.” Chicago: American Bar Association.

2. Debt, Cohabitation, and Marriage in Young Adulthood

3. The Changing Nature of the Association Between Student Loan Debt and Marital Behavior in Young Adulthood

4. Game of Loans

5. Student Loans: Do College Students Borrow Too Much—Or Not Enough?

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