From “good credit” to “bad debt”: Comparative reflections on the student debt experience of young professionals in Santiago, Chile, and Montreal, Canada

Abstract

This article explores how and when student debt is represented as a problem for young people as well as the ways in which the consequences of this indebtedness are handled. This is done through a comparative reflection about the experience of indebtedness felt by several young adults who have university student loan debt in Santiago, Chile, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The primary results confirm that the two contexts produce two types of distinct experiences of indebtedness. The young adults in Montreal consider indebtedness to be a problem, so much so that they have internalized the discourse on individual responsibility and financial autonomy promoted by credit agencies and Quebec society. Indebted young adults in Santiago consider their indebtedness to be a problem when they observe that Chilean society is not capable of fulfilling the promise of social mobility through the acquisition of a university degree. While for Montreal debtors, the consequences are internalized and shielded by legislation, the Santiago debtors politicize their demands for a debt solution.

“Not Nearly as Bad”: Social Comparisons and the Debt Experience

“…These cases suggest that self-improvement interpretations of upward comparisons may be more common when it comes to debt. In the U.S. context, it is uniquely difficult to conceive of indebtedness as unjust or as a collective problem (Krippner 2017; Pérez-Roa 2019). In this context, a self-improvement orientation may be more of an eventuality.…”

“…Furthermore, focusing on helping professions allows me to examine a conservative case for the understanding of debt as a social problem as my respondents work mainly in socially-oriented fields and are themselves politically liberal or moderate. Future research on the role of others in the indebted experience should continue to take advantage of vast differences in institutions, costs, and occupational outcomes at the undergraduate level (Cottom 2017;Moss-Pech 2021;Zaloom 2019a), as well as differences in the social meaning of debt across country contexts (González-López 2021;Pérez-Roa 2019).…”

‘What have you done to our world?’: The rise of a global generational voice

“…It is rather the feeling of threat that dominates here: beyond their differences, they both denounce the emergence of a generation under financial pressure, threatened by ever-increasing education costs and the burden of lifelong student debt. With regard to this study, the generational question takes on thus specific forms in liberalised education systems: while student debt has already been identified as a major social problem in liberal educational systems (Pérez-Roa, 2019), we can see that it destabilises people’s belief in the future and leads to the rise of a generational doubt.…”

Financialization and the Household

“…This financial patchworking, as we call it, belies any clear distinction between public and private provision of necessities (see also Forbess & James 2017). For instance, government-supported higher education, in the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Chile, now requires significant investment by family members, requiring them to take on additional loans and find extra income from a range of sources ( James 2015;Pérez-Roa 2019;Webb 2018Webb , 2020Zaloom 2018aZaloom ,b, 2019. The complexity of household financialization has also heightened the importance of individuals' and families' access to resources that support their reproduction and their future plans for greater stability, wealth, and well-being.…”