Times are tough for parents raising kids today

Parents as a whole will sacrifice to do well by their children, including going into debt.  A Rhode Island School district is sending debt collectors after families who haven’t paid for their children’s lunches. This in turn hurts their parents’ credit scores and thus ability to rent or buy a home.

The American Dream is waning as the hope that their children will have a higher standard of living than their parents.

Ninety percent of children born in 1940 made more than their parents at age 30, but only 50 percent of those born in 1984 had higher incomes than their parents did at age 30.

Parents are borrowing more money than in the past to pay for their kids’ college education and they’re struggling more to repay it. Parents rarely borrow for just one year; they typically take out multiple loans to put their children through school.  Parents can borrow up to theirchild’s cost of attendance and the government will allow them to borrow even ifthey have relatively poor credit.

Parents are making less progress repaying their loans than in the past. Parent borrowers defaulting on these loanswithin five years was 7% in 2000 and by 2009, it had jumped to 11%. So for parentsin the latter half of their working career it can be a real burden, Parents whostarted repaying loans in 2000 paid down 56% of their loan balance within fiveyears, but those who started repaying their loans in 2009 only paid down 36%during the first five years.

In states hardest hit by the negative consequences of Trump’s tax cuts for his favored interests, residents of Idaho, Maine, Missouri, New York and North Carolina can expect less help from their state governments.

The rise of for-profit colleges has contributed to the problem. Some of the worst outcomes, the study found, were among parents who borrowed for their kids to attend for-profit colleges that later collapsed amid allegations they lured students with inflated job placement and graduation rates.