Dive Brief:
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Young adults who are paying off student debt are more likely to buy homes than their same-age peers who never attended college, but the gap is narrowing.
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In fact, two Federal Reserve economists said last week that the lack of home purchases among adults who didn’t go to college could have a more negative impact on the housing market.
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The reason: Debt-saddled college grads are putting off home purchases, but plan to buy in the future. The economists’ data show that 23-year-olds with no college education are more likely to own homes than those who went to college. But by their mid-20s, college-educated homeowners outnumber those who skipped college.
Dive Insight:
By age 35, the two groups nearly even out, the economists said. The takeaway: “Taken together, our results suggest that for those with [a] college education, student loan debt more likely affects the timing of homeownership than people’s eventual attainment of it,” the researchers said in their report.