Students on the rebound

Timothy Lapointe
The Signal
In the past, it was expected for students to leave their parents’ home straight out of high school or college, never to return. Today, more than one-third of adults residing the U.S., aged 18 to 34, live in multi-generational households.

This generation has been named ‘The Boomerang Generation,’ referencing the fact that many will leave their parents’ home only to return, sometimes again and again.

The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank, analyzing data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau found that 39 percent of all adults aged 18-34 either live or recently moved in with their parents. Of these statistics, 53 percent are 18-24, 41 percent are 25-29 and 17 percent are 30-34.

One-in-ten adults between the ages of 18 and 34 blame the poor economy for returning home to their parents. Specific contributing factors for this boomerang effect include the need to repay student loans, failure to find jobs, working jobs with salaries that do not cover living expenses, saving to purchase homes or automobiles, or returning to college to pursue a master’s degree or Ph.D.

“I’m really scared about getting out of college,” said Desiree Allen, computer science major. “Even though I know I’m going into an allegedly lucrative field, all I hear is horror stories about people not being able to actually find jobs anywhere.”

The Pew Research Center reports young adults living with their parents remain upbeat about their living conditions because this phenomenon has become so widespread.

Thirty-four percent of those surveyed claimed living with their parents was good for their relationship, while 48 percent said that it had no difference. Eighteen percent claimed that their relationships suffered due to returning home.

Forty-eight percent of the adult children living at home said they pay rent to their parents, and 89 percent contribute to household expenses.

Stephen Cherry, assistant professor of sociology, said that parents may be the ones who feel they have failed more so than the students.

“Parents, who may be in dire economic situations themselves, are faced with a mixed blessing financially and emotionally,” Cherry said, “In most cases they want to be closer to their children and may benefit financially from having them return home, but at the same time, the return of these so-called ‘boomerang adults’ can place an even greater burden on them financially and/or create feelings of guilt or inadequacy as parents who failed to launch their children into successful independent lives.”

The Pew Research Center reports that the recession is forcing young adults to put their lives on hold in other ways as well. Fifteen percent of adults younger than 35 have postponed getting married; 14 percent say they have delayed having a baby. The Center found young adults from homes with annual incomes of $100,000 dollars or more just as likely as those with incomes under $30,000 to be victims of the boomerang effect.

Stephen Cotten, assistant professor of economics, said it may not be enough to simply be hunting down a well-paying job; happiness can be a vital part of one’s economic success.

“If you are interested in money, major in something, anything, involving math,” Cotten said. “Anything that ends with the word engineering. Finance. Accounting. Economics. Computer Science. Physics. Math itself (obviously), of course, money isn’t the important thing. You want to do something you love. After all, the amount of money you earn has to compensate you for how much you dislike your job, and there is just a point at which no reasonable amount of money will make up for having to suffer through something you hate day after day.”

Cotten encourages students not to give up on their pursuit of a college degree and simply to work with the fear of student loans or the like.

“College is almost always a smart investment,” Cotten said. “Regardless of whether you pay up front or borrow for it. Study after study shows that the increase in average lifetime earnings from getting a bachelor’s degree far outstrips the cost of the degree.”