Almost half of the soon-to-be college graduates in the U.S. have put their entrepreneurial ambitions on hold due to mounting student debt, a new survey conducted by Value Penguin has found.
The website surveyed 618 college students from April 15 to May 6, 2019, who are graduating in the next 12 months and who are using student loans to finance their educations. The sample included 468 soon-to-be college graduates who want to start their own business.
Out of the college students who were surveyed, 76 percent said they want to start their own business. However, 47 percent cite student loans as something holding them back from beginning their business careers.
The view is mostly held by students enrolled in four-year public colleges followed by four-year private college students, two-year college students and students studying in private and for-profit colleges.
Following student loans, 33 percent of students cited not knowing how to secure funding as a barrier to their entrepreneurship goals, and an additional 31 said they lacked experience.
The Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship report, released in February, found that entrepreneurship among 20- to 34-year-olds has declined from 34.3 percent in 1996 to 25.5 percent in 2017. However, the rate of new entrepreneurs increased between 2016 and 2017 among all age groups
Students in the Northeast are currently struggling the most when it comes to loans hindering their decisions to start a business, with 56 percent of those putting their business goals on hold. 53 percent of students in the West, 50 percent in the Midwest and 39 percent in South said the same.
According to the Department of Education, 42.2 million Americans were repaying a federal student loan at the end of June 2018, amounting to nearly $1.5 trillion in total, the largest volume of debt after home loans. For millennial voters, forgiving student debt is also a top political priority for the coming presidential elections.
A new Ipsos survey found that 24 percent of millennial respondents back student debt forgiveness as a top-tier policy issue, with 88 percent of those surveyed asking for lower interest rates on student loans.
Pete Buttigieg and Julián Castro, two candidates who are seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, recently released their respective campaign proposals to overhaul the education system in the country to make it more affordable and accessible.