When David* logs into the online portal for his federal student loans, he sees some big numbers staring back at him: he owes more than $27,000 in his own name, plus about $63,000 in loans that are co-signed with his father but that he pays off himself.
“It’s sort of an inconceivable amount to think about paying off anytime soon,” says David, a 26-year-old in Seattle who graduated as a political science major in 2021, and now works for a non-profit. “You almost never see yourself paying it off.”
