Student debt may confer elevated CVD, inflammation risk in early midlife
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Compared with those who never had student debt or repaid it, adults who consistently had student debt or took on new debt had elevated risk for CVD and high C-reactive protein levels in early midlife, researchers reported.
“As the cost of college has increased, students and their families have taken on more debt to get to and stay in college,” Adam M. Lippert, PhD, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado, Denver, said in a press release. “Consequently, student debt is a massive financial burden to so many in the United States, and yet we know little about the potential long-term health consequences of this debt. Previous research showed that, in the short term, student debt burdens were associated with self-reported health and mental health, so we were interested in understanding whether student debt was associated with cardiovascular illness among adults in early midlife.”
The cohort included participants from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to
Adult Health: 4,193 of whom had complete information on CVD risk scores and 4,240 of whom had complete information on CRP levels.
Among the cohort, most of whom attained a 4-year college degree, 37% never had student debt, 12% paid off their loans, 28% took on student debt and 24% consistently had debt. Lippert and colleagues performed ordinary least squares regression to compare the debt groups according to CVD risk (assessed by 30-year Framingham CVD risk scores) and CRP levels at early midlife.
Compared with those who never had debt, those who took on debt (beta = 0.08; P = .01) and those who consistently had debt (beta = 0.06; P = .035) had higher CVD risk scores, whereas those who paid off debt had lower CVD risk scores (beta = –0.07; P = .015), Lippert and colleagues found.
Compared with those who repaid their debt, those who took on debt (beta = 0.15; P < .001) and those who consistently had debt (beta = 0.13; P < .001) had higher CVD risk scores, according to the researchers.
CRP levels were higher in participants who were consistently in debt compared with those who were never in debt (beta = 0.21; P = .004) and with those who paid off their debt (beta = 0.32; P < .001), and were higher in those who took on debt compared with those who repaid their debt (beta = 0.21; P = .014), the researchers wrote.
Adjustment for degree completion, socioeconomic measures and other sources of debt did not change the results.
“Our study respondents came of age and went to college at a time when student debt was rapidly rising, with an average debt of around $25,000 for 4-year college graduates. It’s risen more since then, leaving young cohorts with more student debt than any before them,” Lippert said in the release. “Unless something is done to reduce the costs of going to college and forgive outstanding debts, the health consequences of climbing student loan debt are likely to grow.”
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