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College debt is a big deal. It can take years to pay off student loans even with a good job straight out of school, and the subject has been the butt of quite a bit of snarky humor concerning the American education system. Apparently though, quite a few millennials– a startling amount, really- have placed their priorities elsewhere. Specifically, in social media.
That’s right, according to a survey done by Credit Loan, most college graduates wouldn’t give up their Twitter account for anything less than 30,000 dollars. That number jumps up in the range between $30,000 and $60,000, then it stays about the same beyond that, but that still leaves the 28% of the 1,000 individuals asked who would not even give up their Twitter accounts for $61,000 or more. To put that into perspective, that’s far more than a years’ worth of wages for most college students.
Illustration: Credit Loan
Though not quite the same, similar numbers of individuals would apparently be unwilling to give up Facebook or Instagram according to the study. You might wonder if this is because these social media sites allow them to keep up with friends who they could not contact otherwise, but this is a flawed line of reasoning; there are plenty of other avenues for contact on the Internet alone, and that’s not even considering something like- god forbid- writing back and forth with actual paper using snail mail.
72% of college graduates would be willing to give up their Facebook or Instagram to wipe their student debt of more than $60,000 completely clean. That’s right, folks, no more selfies on Instagram with filters.
Still, social media wasn’t the only thing people were unwilling to give up. Survey participants were split around 50-50 on whether or not they’d give up alcohol for good in order to clear their debt at the highest level, 40% were unwilling to shave their heads for the same amount, and only 30% were willing to give up eating chocolate forever in order to wipe their financial slates clean.
Before you get too judgmental on millennials specifically though, remember that they are far from the only ones who value social media and other superficial things highly. They were just the ones in this particular survey. Many adults would most likely also refuse to give up their Twitter accounts for large sums of money, especially if they were at the age where they were still using it to plan parties every other weekend.
