Part 2 of 4—Adulting 2023
By MALLORY PARUSZEWSKI
Senior Reporter
Pew Research analysis studies show that a 79% increase of college graduates are moving back home to live with parents rather than on their own.
Most 18 to 34-year-olds living with their parents after college are mainly caused by one major factor, high cost of living on their own. A side factor to living on their own is the health issues that some people have, for example seizures.
2022 college graduate, Zane Gould, already had the plan to move home in order to save money to get a job and his desired career. Gould’s bachelor’s degree is in digital design to create logos, which he hopes to land a job in the near future.
Gould did not want to be at home for long, but living paycheck to paycheck is not ideal for someone wanting to save money to move out on their own, especially with bills and rent to start and the necessities to survive.
“Living at home is all right to an extent,” Gould said. “Sometimes you just have to get out and be away.”
Gould also had severe seizures that limited him from completing the average milestones in life, like getting his driver’s license and living in a college dorm.
His seizures are now maintained, but can be frequent, which is not the main factor for him living at home, but for his mom the seizures are.
Moms always have a different way of looking at situations, and most of the times they include more common sense reality than their children like to admit.
Hayley Bejarano graduated with her bachelors in 2021 from University of Central Florida and her masters in 2022.
She had a good paying job and was living on her own in Florida until the summer of 2023 when she decided to pack everything up and move home to Arizona, with the intention of living on her own.
Her mom, Vicki Bejarano, talked some sense into her and told her that without a job helping with the first couple of months, all the money saved from her last job would go straight into deposit and first month’s rent. It would not be ideal to be broke within the first month.
“It’s awesome having her back. She’s been gone for six years and I like having her in the same state,” Vicki Bejarano said. “She did have to sacrifice some stuff to come back.”
By being back home, Haley Bejarano is not having to pay rent, meaning she can save money and pay off her debt first.
Today’s housing market in Arizona is not the easiest so to put it into perspective, the more she saves right now will help her in the long run.
Her masters is in digital marketing management, which really benefits her because she is a people person. Trying to save money, she is subbing on the side.
Networking is a great way to get your foot in the door and to let people find out how good of a worker you are through people they trust. With two interviews down and two more to go, hopefully Hayley Bejarano will make a decision and be on her feet sooner than she hoped.
“People who know you, know your work ethics,” Vicki Bejarano said.
Expert from the Pew Research Center Drew DeSilver wrote that young adults have consistently moved back home, given that this generation is also less likely to be married so soon or still in school.
However, the share of college graduates living back home has risen 74% opposed to 103% for kids with high school education and 87% for those who did not finish high school or even less.
DeSilver then went on to look at the education and ethnicity side among 18 to 34-year-olds. Non-Hispanics had the highest of 50% with no high school education and lowest of 17% of college graduates’ rates of living with parents.
Young adult Hispanics, without high school education, almost had the same low rate of living with their parents as college graduates.
One possible reason for this is that young Hispanics, who have not completed high school, could be with their parents back in their home country rather than college graduates.
A common reason among many situations in America is the coronavirus outbreak, which pushed millions of young adults to move back in with family members.
With the cost of living going up and people losing jobs, it definitely scares young adults into wondering if it will happen to them which makes them retreat back home as a safe haven.
Articles from BBC.com and Family Tree emphasizes the fact that moving back in with parents could be the norm for people in their 20s and 30s. Family Tree points out the growing group of ‘boomerang kids’, adult children who return to their parents, is on the rise.
In July 2020, 52% of young adults in the US live with one or both of their parents, this is the highest percentage in the US since the end of the great depression in 1940.
Family Tree examined people in their late 20s going on dates and many said that they do whatever they have to do to save money, even if it means moving home.
“There is a trend to staying at home longer, because everything is so expensive,” Joanne Hipplewith, a family therapist, said.
Channel five news in Nashville, Tennessee did a study and they found that 30% of graduates moved back home with her parents just to move home and about 31% at least moved to their hometown for cheaper rent.
Most college students who take online classes say they go home for break and just never go back. Having parents to run home to when things get hard is uncommon, but not rare.
In today’s time, the price of living is so high and puts people behind to where they want to give up. Going home to home-cooked meals, little to no rent and cheap bills is not frowned upon, in fact it might be the new trend.
