"When I graduated from law school, I knew I couldn't make the payments with one job," said Dunne, "so I've had two for the last three years.
"The impact is that I can't afford to buy a house or a car," he said. Essentially, "I have two mortgages to pay every month, but I don't have any real estate to show for it."
His friends and a huge number of his clients are in a similar position, thanks to skyrocketing educational costs - some attributed to workers seeking retraining as high-paying jobs are outsourced.
"In the last 20 years, tuition has risen 130 percent, four times the rate of inflation," Dunne said. "Private colleges typically cost $38,000 a year with room and board.
"It is putting the economy in a dangerous position, delaying life-cycle events like homeownership, marriage, and having children," he said.
The result has been fewer household formations, on which the demand for housing - both existing homes and new construction - depends.
With fewer first-time buyers in the pool, current owners who want to move cannot sell. With so many heavily indebted graduates moving back with their parents, people who thought they had emptied the nests cannot buy smaller houses.
"It boggles the mind how anyone can allow someone without a job to accumulate $200,000 in debt," said Mayfair real estate broker Christopher J. Artur, who spent much effort over the years ensuring that his children graduated from college debt-free.
Dunne, a 1999 Pennsylvania State University graduate who got his law degree from New England University School of Law in 2005, started his firm, Dunne Law Offices P.C., in 2009, "believing that I could help others even though I couldn't help myself."
Of the legions in precarious financial straits because of high debt levels, many in this area find themselves sitting across from Dunne after defaulting on student loans.
