‘I don’t know if anything could have prepared me:’ Loans take toll on students, grads

Tayten Torgrimson, a 2025 University of Oregon graduate, walked across the Matthew Knight Arena stage in June with a cap, gown and five figures of student loan debt.

Torgrimson, 22, grew up in Springfield, loving the Ducks. The in-state tuition was also a plus, though it still costs more than $30,000 a year.

Paying out of pocket was not an option, so his parents took out loans to cover his first year. He was on the hook for the rest.

Fortunately, a scholarship through his work with the football team gave some relief, but he still owes about $18,000. His parents owe a lot more, about $30,000.

“I started out at $1,000 for the whole year in scholarships, and then I went up to $3,500 and then I was up at $7,000 my final year,” Torgrimson said. “I wasn’t paying a lot for school, but I was still paying enough to where we knew I’d be paying it off for a while in the foreseeable future.”

He anticipates spending the next 10 to 15 years paying off those loans through his producer work with KEZI, and hopefully affording his hobbies: golf and video games. Not to mention, he’s a dad to two cats, O’Mallie and Zira.

Graduation was a milestone that was quickly followed by studentaid.gov reminding him that the debt was due. Now.

“I don’t even think a full 72 hours after [graduation], I got a message from student aid that was like, ‘You have to check out this,’ or ‘Complete this or you’re going to be paying extra,’” Torgrimson said. “I was like, ‘Hold on, dang,’ I feel like I haven’t even had a moment to set myself.”

Student debt surges across country

In a single year, 28.6% of undergraduate students accept loans.

U.S. student loan debt totals about $1.8 trillion, according to educationdata.org. In April, 31% of student loan borrowers, or 5.8 million people, were in “late-stage delinquency,” meaning they were more than 90 days past due on payments. That was the highest recorded number of delinquencies ever, according to the report by TransUnion.

Roughly 1.8 million of those borrowers were set to reach default status in July and will be subject to collections and wage garnishments by the U.S. Department of Education.

The country is entering a period known as a “default cliff,” expected to be marked by a surge in additional student loan defaults.

At UO during fiscal year 2019, there were 3,602 students in repayment, and 39 of those were in default. In 2020, there were 3,731 in repayment but none in default. And in 2021, there were 3,541 in repayment; again, none were in default, according to recent data by the National Student Loan Data System, which has data up to fiscal year 2021.

Julia Boboc, a senior at UO, has been trying to pay off her loans a little bit at a time now, to reduce her burden after graduation.

But that became impossible with other responsibilities, including rent, groceries, utilities and a Starbucks addiction.

“My plan is after college to just start putting down payments monthly, trying to get that number lower and lower,” Boboc said. “It’s going to take a minute, but hopefully that’s enough to get rid of some of those loans.”

The increase in defaults also comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has paused income-based student loan forgiveness, the only federal plan today that was still processing forgiveness, impacting about 2 million borrowers.

The Department of Education said the plan was paused to update its systems and will resume once those updates are completed. But this could lead to a surge in borrowers without a clear path to repayment.

How long does it take to pay off the debt? No one knows – because it’s different for each borrower.

Education – but at what cost?

Boboc is originally from San Antonio, Texas, and later moved to Portland. She had to figure out the American college loan system with her mother, who went to college in Romania. 

“The FAFSA kind of looked at my single mother and situation and was like, ‘You’re rich,’ so I did not get a lot of financial aid,” Boboc, 21, said. “Especially in the first couple years of college. I did get scholarships, but it just wasn’t enough to mitigate how much it costs, especially with room and board when you’re living in the dorms.”

Similarly to Torgrimson, Boboc chose UO for the reduced in-state tuition, around $35,000 for her class, but she also has always admired its journalism program.

She has nearly $9,000 in student loans so far.

Scholarships help – Boboc has the Summit Scholarship for $5,000 a year and the National Merit Scholarship that totals $20,000 over four years. The scholarships made a big dent in original cost of tuition. However, the funds were allocated over each term for her last three years, so her tuition with her cost of living still added up.

“So you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, $20,000, that’s nice,’’ Boboc said. “Oh my god, it’s like $1,300 a term, it’s like nothing. So that was the only financial assistance I had.”

Boboc wants to continue her education, get her doctorate and become a professor, but that will take another five to 10 years.

“I need to work as much as possible to get these loans paid off in the first place to be able to then go to school again,” Boboc said. “As much as I love learning and I love school, college has very much opened my eyes to how much it costs to get an education in this country.”

Like Torgrimson and Boboc, Alisa Dougherty knew paying tuition without help was not possible for her, so she and her family turned to loans. She picked up jobs to cover her other expenses.

“I’ve been working as much as I can to cover rent and stuff. I pay my own rent and everything,” said Dougherty, 22, who graduated this year. “But I know that I’m lucky that my parents would help me if I needed it.”

Dougherty’s parents also took out loans for her. She owes about $20,000 and is helping her parents pay back their loan.

She also wants to continue her education, but the debt will likely hold her back.

“I would love, love to do so much more school,” Dougherty said. “I would not love any more loans. So it’s definitely something that’s preventing me from continuing my academic career.”

Eric Howald, a university spokesperson, said there are some resources for student preparation on loan repayment by UO, but students must reach out first to access these resources.

The Financial Wellness Center offers student loan repayment workshops and post-graduate workshops to financially mentor students. The Career Center also provides services for job searches.

The Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships does reach out to students nearing graduation, though, to complete loan exit counseling by the university that provides information on repayment plans, Howald said.

Dougherty feels UO didn’t adequately prepare her for the financial aspect of post-graduate life.

“I don’t feel like (UO) prepared me at all,” Dougherty said. “I feel especially having my roommate in the journalism school – she is in a unique position where she’d be working on her resume in class. That was something I had to do in my free time and without guidance.”