High rents, student loan debt forcing local students to head home post-grad

CHESTNUT HILL - Boston College held its 149th commencement Monday -- and one thing many of the graduates have in common: plans to move back home.

“My job fortunately affords me the ability to work remotely,” said Jackson Schumacher, who earned a BS in neuroscience and is working for a research lab at Massachusetts General Hospital. “And Boston housing prices are very expensive.”

Schumacher’s family lives in Maine and he said moving back in with them provides an opportunity to save some money and start paying back student loans.

“With expenses, that’s the only option for some people,” said BC graduate Colleen McGrath, who landed a job in Boston that actually comes with housing. “It just makes sense in this economy to kind of get your footing.”

Here’s another thing many BC students have in common: student loans. Collegetransitions.com reported that in 2023, 44% of students at BC graduated with student loan debt -- with the average amount exceeding $23,000.

But at some institutions in New England, the average debt was far higher than that. At Bryant University in Rhode Island, for example, where 64% of students took out student loans, the average debt topped $64,000. At Wentworth Institute of Technology, URI, UNH, Stonehill College, Berklee College of Music and Babson College, average student loan debt fell between $40,000 - $50,000.

Student loan debt within the UMass system (Lowell, Boston and Amherst) averaged around $30,000 -- close to the national average.

Add in the high cost of rent and it’s easy to see why about half of college students wind up doing some ‘home time’ post-graduation.

“It’s a pretty persistent trend,” said Jeffrey J. Arnett, PhD, a developmental psychologist and senior research scholar at Clark University in Worcester. “Over the last 20 years people have gotten more education, have married later, gotten stable work later and had their first child later.”

In fact, Arnett, author of Emerging Adulthood, said that the 20s can actually be a more tumultuous time than the teens.

“Most parents and their children have the expectation that once their emerging adults graduate from college they’ll find a job and live an independent life,” he said. “And many of them do. But some have trouble finding a job or they find a job and they don’t like that job or they get fired or laid off or something happens. There are a lot of things that can happen in the 20s to cause job loss.”

Chigozie Sumani, who earned a master’s degree at BC Monday, remembered when she had to move back home after graduating from UMass Amherst.

“I still felt like I kind of had to let them know every move and stuff like that,” she said. But, Sumani said the time at home paid off -- in the form of earning enough money to go back to school and secure an apartment. She said it was bittersweet leaving home that second time -- and that she misses her family.

Isabel Buchanan earned a BA at Boston College Monday. She’s sticking around the Boston area for graduate school and is looking for an apartment now. What would it be like to go back home? Weird.

“You’ve been on your own, like experiencing this independence then, do I have to tell my Mom every time I’m leaving the house,” she said. “So there is that weird kind of in-between part that would be difficult.”

Arnett said it’s important to remember that many post-grad boarders won’t be sticking around for long. He recommends cherishing the time, because it may not happen again.

“It’s very likely that when they move out this time they’re not coming back,” he said. “And believe it or not, you may miss them. And the good news is, they’re not 13 anymore. And so they actually see their parents as human beings and not just as parents. And that can be very nice for all of them because they have a more adult-like relationship, more adult conversations. And that can be rewarding to both parents and adult children.”

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW

©2025 Cox Media Group