As Washington D.C. liberals continue their fight for 'free' college education for all (which, of course, is just a nicer way of saying largely useless community college education crammed down the throats of taxpayers) and student loan forgiveness programs, a new study from LendEDU reveals some of the shocking realities behind where college students are really spending their $1.3 trillion worth of student debt.
Per a survey of 500 college co-eds, LendEDU found that 31% of students, or roughly 2.4 million kids, admitted to using student loan money to fund their binge drinking trips to Cancun and Daytona Beach for spring break.
According to the LendEDU poll, 30.60% of college students with student debt claim that they are using money they received from student loans to help pay for their spring break trip this year. For reference, you can use student loan funding for living expenses.
The National Center for Education Statistics calculated that 20.5 million students will be attending college this year in the United States. Orbitz reported that 55% of students will be going on spring break. Using this data, we can roughly calculate that 11,275,000 students will be going on spring break this year. And, it is estimated that 69% of all current college students use student loan debt by the time of graduation. By doing some additional arithmetic, we can calculate that roughly 7,779,750 student debtors are going on spring break this year.
Factoring in our data, and assuming the claims made in our survey are accurate, this means that 2.38 million students are using money received from student loans to pay for their spring break excursion this year.
But don't worry yourselves you silly taxpayers...it's only $1.3 trillion (and counting) of debt that you'll soon have to cover.
Adding insult to injury, 24% of students admitted to using their student loan money for alcohol and 7% use those federally-subsidized checks for drugs.
Nearly a quarter (23.80%) of respondents stated that they have used money received from student loans to pay for drinking some type of alcohol. This answer also included spending money at bars.
A third (33.40%) of students answered that they have used money received from student loans to pay for clothing and other accessories.
Similarly, the same amount (33.40%) of students said that they have used money received from student loans to pay for restaurants and take-out.
6.60% of respondents responded saying that they have used money received from student loans to pay for drugs.
Finally, 5.60% of students that participated in our survey stated that they used money received from student loans on gambling or sports betting.
“Students should minimize their borrowing during their college years and live a sparse lifestyle — but no one wants to hear that when their fraternity brothers or sorority sisters are packing up to Cabo for the week,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst of Bankrate.com. “It’s like putting spring break on a credit card, but this one is subsidized by taxpayers,” McBride added.
Meanwhile, as we pointed out before (see "Obama Student Loan Foregiveness Plan To Cost Taxpayers $137 Billion, GAO Finds"), the GAO currently estimates that taxpayers will ultimately have to cover $137 billion of student loan debt outstanding...an obligation we're certain will only grow over time.
So fight on, Bernie...and while you continue your crusade for "free college," America's entitled millennials will be laughing all the way to Cancun.