PITTSBURGH — When Allie Holler started Duquesne University in 2017, the York County native remembers encountering a class divide markedly different from what she knew from her semi-rural hometown — with “super preppy” kids and their elitist attitudes mixed among her peers from the lower middle class.
But as Holler, now 23, got to know more of her classmates on campus, a surprising common denominator emerged: the thousands of dollars in student loans they had taken on to afford their higher education.
“I was talking with some of my friends about student loan debt, and some of them are like, $100,000 in debt,” Holler explained. “I’m privileged that I graduated with only $30,000 in debt from a private university.”
