Literature Review 4

    Tamara Draut is the director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, which is a public policy center in New York City. Her research primarily focuses on household debt in America. She has been covered by newspapers such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal as well as appearing on the Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight and Fox News.  
    Her first book, Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30- Somethings can't get Ahead provides a look into the obstacles that young adults face after college graduation. She describes how a college degree is now the equivalence of a high school diploma and the reasons for it. Draut states that "piling up debt has become a new rite of passage into adulthood" (91). She goes into further detail of this concept by describing the jaw-dropping credit card debt accumulated in early adulthood. Quoting the Washington Post,  she says "The growth in credit card debt is about instant gratification and the inability to live within one's means" (Draut 92). Due to the popular and expensive charges such as car repair, travel, and the necessities for moving out, credit card debt has been the go-to "trust fund" for the past couple of generations. This material strengthens my research question because it explains the mentality of young adults. They pay with credit cards for items they are unable to pay off, not for a couple of months, and wind up collecting debt. This debt is what does't allow them to move ahead in life.
    As stated before, this attitude of piling up on debt through credit cards is one of the reasons why there is a delay in adulthood. She goes on to say, "Although debt-for-diploma is preferable to no diploma at all, heavy doses of student loans are causing more grads to report serious side effects" (Draut 98). These "side effects" include the delay of marriage (14% of students reported in 2002 compared to 7% in 1991), the delay of having children (20% as opposed to 12% is 1991), and buying a home (40% as opposed to 25% in 1991), all of which typically define the emergence into adulthood (Draut 98). Her concept is that this delay is due to student loan debt, which has dramatically risen in the 1990's.  This is due to Congress's establishment of a federal loan program that was open to all students, regardless of their household income. This was made to support the middle class, where families were unable to pay increasing college costs. In the long run, this led the middle class into serious debt. This information directly supports my research because it shows the percentage changes in graduates waiting until they move on with their lives to proceed to the typical "adult" steps. Buying a house, getting married and settling down is the epitome of emerging adulthood, or at least the traditional idea of adulthood. This describes the delays young adults and in and gives a direct reason why they are there.

Draut, Tamara. Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30- Somethings can't get Ahead. 
          New York: Anchor Books, 2005. Print.