College grads move back home to save money

Moving back home after graduation no longer a no-no

By Cristina Rouvalis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Laptop in hand, Bobby Franklin moves about his room at this parent's home in Plum, Pa, a suburb of Pittsburgh. A recent graduate of Clarion University, Franklin says his dream job would be in pharmaceutical sales.

Franklin, confident and energetic, seemed on a trajectory to an independent life -- going to college, moving into an off-campus apartment and jumping into the banking industry just weeks after his last final exam.

Only, the college graduate has circled back home like a boomerang.

Inside his parent's elegant five-bedroom house, he has settled into a roomy bedroom, with its own staircase leading outside.

His return home has raised nary an eyebrow with his peers. After all, he said, most of his friends have moved home, too.

"Everyone is doing it. No one says, 'Why are you still at home?' " said the 24-year-old. "I never get that. It is more like, 'Stay at home as long as you can and save.' "

Some parents who pondered the loneliness of empty-nest syndrome are facing a surprising new question. When will their young adult children leave home -- and this time for good?

The sight of a college graduate moving into his or her childhood bedroom, filled with dusty high school trophies and curling rock-star posters, is no longer an oddity. A sour economy, big college loans and sky-high city rents have made some new graduates defer their plans to strike out on their own.

Boomerangers, as they are called, are everywhere you look. Some 14.5 million children age 18 to 24 lived at home in 2007, up from 6.4 million in 1960, according to U.S. Census figures. To be sure, much of the increase simply reflects overall population growth -- as the actual percentage of men living at home is up only slightly, from 52 percent in 1960 to 55 percent in 2007.

The bigger change has occurred with women. Nearly half in this age range were living at home in 2007, up from 35 percent nearly a half-century ago -- a shift attributed in part to the delay in marriage.

"We see a larger percentage of Gen-Yers or Millennials, or whatever tag we want to use, have a closer relationship to their parents and feel more comfortable relying on parental support," said Heidi Hanisko, director of client services for CollegeGrad.com. "There is less of a stigma than there was five or 10 years ago."

Mike Masilunas' old childhood bedroom -- the one with photos of him fly fishing -- was converted into an office inside his family's house.

So when Masilunas, a graduate of Penn State Erie, moved home in May of 2007, he had to share a room with his older brother. In the musical bedrooms of his household, Masilunas later took over his younger sister's bedroom when she headed off to college.

The 23-year-old financial consultant said it made sense to live at home because it is close to his office. Plus, there is the matter of $40,000 in student loans.

"I can put $600 toward school loans instead of rent," he said. "Rather than living for right now, I am thinking about a house and retirement. I can put up with this for a few years."

Most of his friends understand because they are at home too. Sometimes he catches flak. "You gotta get out of there," one friend told him recently.

There are trade-offs to his rent-free existence. He gets along well with his parents and pitches in with chores, but it is an adjustment to go from total freedom to being under his mother's watch.

"A mother will always be a mother. They only want the best for you. They are always nagging you. I kind of zone it out. 'Do this. Do that.' The first month it was like, 'Let's pull back the reins a little bit.' "

(E-mail Cristina Rouvalis at crouvalis(at)post-gazette.com)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)