 This is Jesse Oldman a typical college student and like a normal college student are her student loan bills How long will it be until Jesse pays these loans back has interest So how long do you think it would take somebody to pay off over a hundred thousand dollars? Now there are many factors that go into a loan But we can estimate that at a yearly interest rate of six percent over a five-year period that Jesse would pay nearly $2,000 a month with her total debt being close to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars and this isn't completely abnormal either in the United States There's more than one point three trillion dollars in unresolved student loan debt And it can have a very serious effect on the individual student going into the workplace student loans would presumably would decrease the number of Graduates who start their own business the amount of people under the age of 30 who own a private business has reached a 24-year low But George Giorgiatis an assistant professor at Boston University's School of Economics says it goes even further It also reduces the number of people who want to go into public interest jobs And again, this is not good because these public interest in public interest jobs help They usually the more poor segments of society, but there is always a flip side when it comes to economics One micro level you'd say yeah, but if you didn't have the debt You wouldn't have the education you wouldn't have the skills You wouldn't have these kind of earnings and you want to eat your cake and have it This is John R. Harris a professor of economics at BU and a pioneer in the field of developmental economics Remember your debt is somebody else's asset So you borrow from somebody you have to pay But there's someone that's receiving the repayment and the and the interest on that what professor Harris is talking about as a transfer of funds It can be complicated. So let's break it down Say a student takes that loan with the principal and the interest Let's say that loan adds up to a hundred thousand dollars through the financial sector your money could be split into a number of different avenues This could be an investment in new technology in housing in other businesses or back into education for the next generation Thus potentially growing the economy so your loan might not be all bad But still it is important to weigh your investment before taking a loan Standard universities tend to still be a good investment But Kevin Lang a labor economist at BU says the opposite might be true when it comes to for-profit universities Let's say at the other extreme a for-profit institution where they've taken on significant debt to get a culinary certificate That's gonna be much more problematic Many of these for-profit universities are under investigation for predatory lending But at Boston University, it seems to be a different story. These loans aren't meant to deceive In fact, there are financial advisors ready to discuss each student's financial situation Good morning College of Communication. This is Bill. How can I help you? This is Bill Taylor director of student services at BU school of communication What am I gonna learn in the classroom? What are the connections to the field? What does career services do for me? What are some realistic outcomes that I'm gonna get from this program? It is his goal to educate every student about the risks and the rewards of their investment And then making the decision of saying all right now that I have these realistic outcomes kind of on the table And I know what BU is offering as an educational piece. How does that fit in financial aid wise? But even with advisors there to help you along the way student debt can still be daunting I kind of like walk around with like this like general because financial terror is kind of you know It's a scary thing. Nobody wants to feel massively in doubt all the time There is pending legislation that could help lower student loan rates But for now Jesse and many others are hoping for the best because graduation is just around the corner That's the best I can do right now is to hope that I'm going to be able to find a way to be able to pay these bills And eat at the same time in Boston. I'm Paul Dudley