More debt, more accountants?

CFO Brew spoke with Michael Jones, associate professor of economics in UC’s Lindner College of Business, for an in-depth analysis of the student loan repayment landscape and what it means for early careers. 

“The last several years [have] been pretty unprecedented, and having the pause for several years…I think that actually created a lot of uncertainty for the individual borrower, so they didn’t know when or if it was even going to start back up again,” Jones told CFO Brew.

He noted that one of the first impacts of repayments would be a drop in short-term consumer spending, including “a reduction in housing demand, in everything from vehicles to discretionary spending in restaurants.”

But “in somewhat of an ironic way,” these immediate pains could provide some longer-term certainty for a generation of students increasingly looking at university studies as an opportunity for returns on the hefty investment, he continued.

While a substantive change in undergrad majors will likely take “years to come to fruition,” Jones notes that some students are flocking to accounting, likely due to its supposed stability, adding that the same is also holding true for “jobs that have that human touch,” like nursing. 

Jones advised chief financial officers to bring in young talent that have an entrepreneurial spirit. With student debt back on the table, more recent grads will look for stable work as opposed to starting their own companies. But Jones said that drive to innovate will still be there. 

“This is a subtle shift, but there may be more opportunities to bring that innovation in-house,” Jones noted, “and do more of that R&D with internal resources rather than thinking about innovation through the market, which I think a lot of firms and CFOs think about in that way.”

Read the full story on CFO Brew. 

Featured image at top of financial papers and a calculator. Photo/iStock/Krisanapong Detraphiphat.