Changes

An increasing debt burden may be preventing would-be entrepreneurs from exploring their business pursuits. A gallup poll conducted in October of 2015[http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/186179/student-loan-debt-major-barrier-entrepreneurship.aspx], found that as many as two million students cited loan debt as the principle reason they’d forgone or delayed plans to start a business. After the 2008 financial crisis, firm deaths had significantly exceeded firm births as calculated by the US census bureau. This phenomenon had gradually reversed itself in 2011, but has continued to miss the net average of 120,000 firm births experienced during the late 90's and early 2000's. Researchers speculate that fulfillment of a quarter of the entrepreneurial plans of the two million students’ pursuits would have been enough to return the 120,000 firm birth surplus. Therefore, in addition to complicating the capital acquisition process, student debt appears to prohibit business formation altogether.