There are 44 million Americans carrying student loan debt. Most are delusional…

Here are the hard statistics: 44 million Americans carry $1.28 trillion in student loan debt. The average graduate in the class of 2016 is carrying about $37,000 in student loans.

Most of those students will not go into high-earning fields like engineering. Their degrees will be in the liberal arts. If they’re lucky, they’ll be earning a little more than their total debt load when they get their first job.

UNDISCIPLINED SPENDERS

They aren’t very disciplined when it comes to paying off their loans. The standard repayment plan for federal loans has the debt being paid off in 10 years. Research shows, however, that the time it takes the average student to repay a loan of about $30,000 takes 21 years.

People are more disciplined with their car loans than their student debt. The average car loan in 2016 was $30,000, and it took an average of five and a half years for people to pay it off. Contrast that with the 21 years it takes them to pay off their $30,000-student loan.

The students could have gotten a degree for $15,000, total, and skipped the debt. But they wanted to have the college experience: away from their parents’ authority, sleeping in co-ed dorms. They probably weren’t self-disciplined enough to study, so they didn’t take anything difficult. That’s why they end up with degrees in social work and history.

Or maybe even philosophy.

PANHANDLING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

And now, they want your mercy. They want the government to cancel the debts that their poor decisions led them into.

These kids — sorry, these adults — are delusional.

A recent survey of 500 students currently attending college shows that 50% of them believe they’ll be able to receive debt forgiveness from the federal government.

They want you to pay to cover their bad choices. They are hoping Uncle Sam will force you to redeem them, to buy back their financial freedom for no good reason except that they just think they deserve it. For some reason.

They never had to pay for anything before. Why start now?

Good luck with that. The statistics reveal the reality: less than 10% of the loans will be forgiven.

They aren’t even ashamed of themselves. The survey is for those currently attending college. They aren’t even out yet, and they’re already expecting government support.

This is not the kind of attitude you should want to instill in your child.

The best thing to do? Figure out how to get through college as cheaply as you can. Skip the “college experience” and start working sooner than later. Avoid debt. Be a future-oriented person. Work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Don’t puff your life away for four years with parties and debauchery and then unrealistically expect everything to just be ok afterwards.

Actions have consequences.