"The Relationship I Have With Money": Student Debtors’ Economic Strategies and Approaches to Money Management

College graduates with student debt face challenges as they manage multiple financial obligations. This paper explores student debtors’ understandings of and relationships to money, including how they think about savings, retirement contributions, andcredit card debt. Analysis is based on findings from part of a longitudinal study on student loans: 101 in-depth interviews with 15 participants with loans, first interviewed in 2016 when they were about to graduate college and then almost annually for nearly 8 years. Participants in this study, all college graduates with student debt, varied in their money management strategies. Many tried to avoid credit card debt, aware of its costs, yet succumbed to it out of necessity. For some, student debt obligations appeared to distort their relationship to money in ways that led them to make counterintuitive, disadvantageous decisions. Policy recommendationsinclude relaxing barriers to savings and finding new ways to encourage retirement plan participation among young people.