What about student loans? (For American Audiences)

Question 11034.

Student loans raise a genuine question of conscience for believers, because Scripture has strong things to say about debt and yet many young Christians cannot train for the work God has given them without borrowing.

This question comes to me most often from American readers, where the sums involved are frankly alarming, but the principles apply wherever education is funded by borrowing. The answer is not a simple yes or no, and anyone who gives you one has not understood either the Bible or the finance.

What Scripture says about debt, and how student loans fit

The Bible never forbids borrowing. It warns about it repeatedly. “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” That is a description of what debt does to a person, and it is accurate. Debt transfers a portion of your future freedom to someone else.

Psalm 37:21 says the wicked borrows but does not pay back, which locates the moral weight on repayment rather than on borrowing itself. Romans 13:8 tells us to owe no one anything except to love each other, which in context is about paying what is due rather than a blanket prohibition on credit.

So student loans are not sin. They are a serious commitment that Scripture would have you enter with your eyes open, counting the cost in the way Jesus described the man building a tower.

The questions to ask before borrowing

The first question is whether the training is genuinely necessary for the work. A great many degrees are taken because that is what one does at eighteen, not because the vocation requires them. Borrowing tens of thousands to find yourself is an expensive way to do something a gap year and a job would achieve.

The second is whether the numbers work. What is the realistic starting income in that field, and what will repayment consume? If the honest answer is that repayment will make marriage, giving or ministry impossible for fifteen years, the loan is deciding rather more of your life than the course is.

The third is whether there is another route. Cheaper institutions, part-time study, employer sponsorship, working first and studying later. Student loans have become the default rather than one option among several, and defaults deserve suspicion.

Student loans and the call to give

One of the most common casualties of heavy borrowing is generosity. Young believers with large repayments often conclude they cannot give until they are clear, and fifteen years later the habit was never formed. That is a real spiritual cost, and it is worth counting before signing.

I would encourage anyone in this position to give something from the beginning, however small. Giving is a discipline of the heart before it is a transfer of funds, and a person who gives while in debt has learned something that a person who waits for comfort never does. This connects to what I say about giving in the Christian life.

The same applies to the local church. A congregation that knows a young member is under a heavy burden should be helping, not lecturing, and I would rather see a church quietly assist with a repayment than fund another sign for the noticeboard.

If you already have them

Do not let shame make you passive. A great many Christians took on student loans at eighteen with almost no financial understanding and no adult asking hard questions. That was unwise, but it was not scandalous, and God is not disappointed with you in the way you imagine.

Make a plan and work it. Know the interest rate, know the terms, know whether early repayment helps or does not. In some systems aggressive repayment is wise; in others the debt behaves more like a graduate tax and overpaying is money thrown away. Get proper advice rather than a slogan.

And keep it in proportion. Student loans are a burden. They are not a curse, they are not a barrier to God’s use of you, and they are not a verdict on your worth. Some of the most fruitful ministers I know spent their first decade repaying something.

Teaching the next generation

Parents and churches carry real responsibility here. Sending a young person into a six-figure commitment with no financial teaching is a failure of discipleship, and the fact that everyone does it does not make it wise.

Talk about money at home. Talk about vocation as calling rather than credential. Help young people see that the Bible dignifies ordinary work and that a trade is not a consolation prize for those who did not go to university.

And be honest about what a degree does and does not guarantee. The promise that education always pays for itself has left a generation with student loans and no corresponding income, and the church should not have repeated that promise uncritically.

Counting the cost before taking student loans

Jesus’ illustration about the man who begins a tower and cannot finish it is not about finance, but the principle transfers exactly. Sit down first and count the cost. A great many young believers sign for student loans without ever having written down the monthly repayment against a realistic starting salary, which is precisely the failure Jesus describes.

So do the arithmetic before the emotion. What is the total? What is the interest? What is the realistic monthly repayment against the median income for that field in five years? If those numbers have never been on a page together, the decision has not really been made yet.

Then ask what the money is buying. A degree required for a regulated profession is a different purchase from a general degree taken because it seemed the next thing. Student loans that fund the first are an investment in a calling. Student loans that fund the second are often an expensive way of deferring a decision.

Debt, freedom and the call of God

The reason Proverbs describes the borrower as the lender’s slave is that debt constrains future choices. That constraint matters spiritually as well as financially. I have known young believers who could not go where God appeared to be sending them because a repayment schedule made it impossible, and that is a real loss.

It cuts both ways, of course. Some callings genuinely require training that must be funded, and refusing all debt would have closed the door entirely. The question is whether the borrowing serves the calling or replaces it. Student loans taken to obtain a qualification God is clearly leading you towards are a different matter from loans taken to keep options open.

Either way, keep the horizon in view. Romans 13:8 tells us to owe no one anything except to love, and the practical meaning is that debts should be actively heading towards zero rather than sitting comfortably as a permanent feature of the landscape.

The church and student debt

I would like to see churches take this more seriously than most of us do. A congregation that would happily fund a mission trip could as easily help a young member clear a repayment, and the second may do more lasting good than the first. The New Testament pattern of sharing so that there is no needy person among us has no footnote excluding education debt.

Practically, that might mean a benevolence fund, or older members offering financial mentoring, or simply an honest conversation before an eighteen-year-old signs anything. Financial discipleship is discipleship, and leaving it to the market is an odd choice for a church that teaches on everything else.

It also means resisting the assumption that university is the automatic route. Trades are honourable, apprenticeships are frequently better paid, and Scripture dignifies ordinary labour without a hint of hierarchy. A church that only celebrates graduations is teaching something it probably does not intend.

Finally, be careful how you speak about other people’s decisions here. Financial choices made under pressure at eighteen deserve sympathy rather than a lecture, and the believer paying steadily every month is being faithful in a way that deserves recognition rather than a raised eyebrow.

One last encouragement. Student loans feel permanent when you are twenty-two and they very rarely are. Balances come down, incomes rise, and most of the people I know who agonised over them at the start now mention them as a footnote in a life that turned out fuller than they expected.

So, now what?

If you are deciding, get the actual figures in front of you and pray over them with someone older who has no financial interest in the outcome. Borrow the smallest amount that gets you where God is calling you, and not a pound more.

If you are repaying, build a plan, keep giving, and refuse the shame. Owe no one anything is a command about integrity in repayment, and you can obey it today whatever the balance says.

And if you are watching a younger believer walk into this, say something. Kindly, early, and with real numbers. Who spoke to you before you signed?

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

Romans 13:8 (ESV)