By Chuck Bentley

“Graduates across the country need to make plans to avoid a debt that may never go away,” advised Crown CEO Chuck Bentley. “Winning the ‘Game of Loans’ is possible, but too few achieve that victory.” Today, seven in 10 graduating seniors at public and private colleges have student loans, totaling about $30,000 per student. And while many people don’t know this, bankruptcy is generally not a get-out-of-jail free card when it comes to education.

“Just like home values collapsed when the housing bubble burst because loan amounts and home values didn’t match up, more and more graduates find that they can’t find jobs to pay for the degree they earned,” said Bentley.

For help with making a plan for a debt-free degree or at least minimum loans, Crown launched a special website for students, parents, grandparents, or anyone who wants to invest in a graduation gift that lasts a lifetime. We have a number of online resources and unique job-finding tools. Crown offers everything from strategies for graduating debt free from college, to Career Direct skills planning, to an outline for job seekers found in Robert Dickie III’s The Leap: Launching Your Full-Time Career in Our Part-Time Economy.

One of the best ways to avoid a frustrating career and save thousands of dollars in college expenses is to choose your major wisely. Bentley noted that Career Direct was developed over almost 20 years to identify a person’s passions and strengths to direct people to fields of study and better options for job seekers.

“Considering the hours you will spend at work, isn’t it worth it to spend more time really thinking about what you were uniquely created to do?” asked Bentley. “Just like building a good marriage comes from really understanding and supporting another person, building a successful career begins with understanding who a person really is and what motivates him or her.”

Consider this recent report: “About 80 percent of students in the United States end up changing their major at least once, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. On average, college students change their major at least three times over the course of their college career.”

“A lot of money is wasted as people play the ‘Game of Loans,’ wandering through expensive classes only to discover that they don’t really like where their career is going,” said Bentley.

To learn more about earning a debt-free degree, developing a career based on your passions, and mapping creative employment options, visit Crown here.

Originally posted 5/15/15.