New York Times, They Want to Become Nuns and Priests. Student Debt Holds Them Back.:

For young adults who want to join certain religious orders, paying off debt before taking a vow of poverty can prove challenging. But their communities are willing to help. …

People wishing to enter religious life in the Catholic tradition are typically required to pay off all their debts to prepare themselves to take a vow of poverty, and others living in religious communities usually don’t earn an income or own assets, preventing them from paying any debts they accrued as laypeople. If they’re among the 20 percent of Americans with undergraduate degrees who have student loan debt, it can pose significant challenges.

A report from the National Religious Vocation Conference signaled the alarm more than a decade ago with data that confirmed that “educational debt had become a deterrent for many discerning a religious vocation,” pointing to factors such as the ballooning cost of tuition and wage stagnation. Since then, the average student loan debt in the United States has grown steadily, reaching an average of about $30,000 in 2023.

Several organizations have emerged to help religious order candidates with this problem. … The Labouré Society [is] a nonprofit Catholic group that has helped more than 400 people enter religious formation since its inception in 2003. The average student loan amount of Labouré candidates, or aspirants, is nearly $100,000, and they are typically given a goal of raising $60,000 in one six-month cycle during which Labouré facilitators train them on how to make phone calls, write letters and take meetings with potential donors in their communities. Donations have ranged from a few thousand dollars to $130,000 from a retired widow who felt inspired to give the proceeds from the sale of her home. ..

[A]nother Catholic organization that provides student debt support [is the] Fund for Vocations …. Unlike the Labouré Society, the Fund for Vocations does not ask aspirants to raise money, instead paying their monthly student loan payments directly for the entire time they are in formation with a religious community.

The Fund for Vocations, founded in the early 2000s, has grown considerably in recent years to meet demand. The organization was able to distribute 28 grants totaling about $900,000 last year, in amounts ranging from about $5,000 to more than $75,000, depending on the needs of the applicants.

Young aspirants often deal with a drastically shortened period to repay their loans. Applicant age limits, as young as 30 in some religious orders, create additional pressures. And though many religious communities and seminaries do not require applicants to have college degrees, others encourage them or require them, especially if members provide health care or education services to the community.

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