The problem of rising college costs is often associated with the possibility of discharging student loan debt in a New York bankruptcy filing. However, higher-education costs also affect students’ parents. In a new study that appears in the journal Demography, the authors estimate that parental contributions to their children’s college attendance corresponded with higher foreclosure rates. The finding implies that today many parents are overextended by supporting their children, and it may lead them into financial difficulties down the road.
Here’s how the study worked and what it found.
The authors relied on a concept called “commuting zones,” which appears to be concocted by social scientists rather than government agencies. A commuting zone is, as its name suggests, an area defined by common commuting and employment patterns. They are usually larger than a government-designated metropolitan statistical area because they envelop rural communities beyond their urban cores. The authors focused on commuting zones containing more than 100,000 residents, about 305 of 741 or 85 percent of the national population as of 2000. The authors then connected college-attendance data to foreclosure data, and looked for any connections.
The study found that for 19-year-olds from median-income households, a 1 percent increase in college attendance corresponded to 19,000 additional foreclosures the following year. This finding held after accounting for multiple factors, e.g. employment, housing levels, or refinance mortgage debt in the commuting zones.
The authors emphasize that the effects on foreclosure rates of supporting a child through college were dwarfed by the overall problems in the economy: collapsing real estate prices, unemployment, and financial instability. Disturbingly, the study’s findings apply all along the income distribution, so even well-off households could find themselves in foreclosure even if the other problems in the economy didn’t affect them. Among the authors’ numerous caveats to their results, one worth mentioning is that they could not account for the effect of supporting a college student on renting households. Perhaps they were able to adapt better because they are more mobile, but they tend to have lower incomes to begin with.
The study calls attention to the ineffectiveness of college financial-aid schemes reducing the financial risk to parents who support their children. It also notes that risky financial behavior is not limited to low-income homeowners or subprime lenders. Even higher-income households can overextend themselves.
The Demography study can be found here.
The authors’ last point—that anyone can end up in financial trouble because of debt—is one of the more important lessons for New York bankruptcy debtors. Another one is that the problem of college costs goes beyond student loans. Many parents struggle to support their children who are in college, and many more take out home-equity lines of credit to do so or co-sign children’s student loans. All of these choices can result in financial hardship.
If the high cost of college, whether for yourself or your children, has led you to serious financial problems, then talking to an experienced New York bankruptcy lawyer can help you assess your options.
For answers to more questions about bankruptcy, the automatic stay, effective strategies for dealing with foreclosure, and protecting your assets in bankruptcy please feel free to contact experienced bankruptcy attorney Brooklyn NY Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.