Go Ahead, Throw A Party For Paying Off Your Student Loans

On a sunny April day, you walk into Colette Louis’ living room in Charlotte, North Carolina, and are greeted by women wearing matching mauve pajama sets. A bartender offers you a menu of signature drinks and a mimosa. In the kitchen, a handsome personal chef prepares sizzling shrimp and fresh corn tortilla tacos. Tables are adorned with tea lights, big white gardenias, and luxe goody bags.

Then you spot the main attraction: a giant, professionally-shot photograph of Louis in a graduation stole, firing off a money gun loaded with fake bills. It hits you — this isn’t a birthday, baby shower, or bachelorette. Louis finally paid off all $120,000 of her student loans, and she’s ready to celebrate.

She isn’t the only one throwing this kind of bash. This economic burden affects a quarter of United States adults. It takes the average borrower 20 years to pay off student loans in full, per 2024 data from the Pew Research Center and the Education Data Initiative.

Gen Z is more likely than older generations to celebrate career achievements instead of marriage, children, or birthdays, per a McKinsey 2025 consumer report. And in a world where weddings and birth rates are at record lows, according to the Centers for Disease Control in 2024, it’s no wonder that people are seeking new ways to mark life’s milestones.

While babies and love are still wonderful and party-worthy, a rising number of former students are honoring a different kind of accomplishment: financial freedom.

Finally The Guest Of Honor

Brandi Cole, 39, recently paid off her $110,000 in student debt after thinking she would “take it to the grave.” She chipped away at it for a decade and called it a “never-ending slog.” So when she made her final payment this past winter, it was a major moment.

“I’m not married, I don’t have kids, and I don’t own a house. I haven’t had the traditional life milestones,” she explains. Over the years, Cole had attended numerous friends’ weddings, baby showers, and similar events. “I wanted to do something so that they could come and celebrate with me,” Cole says.

That’s key. “As marriage and children are becoming tougher to achieve financially, we’re now valuing different moments in our lives,” Louis says — namely, ones “less tied to other people.”

Balling Out On A Budget

While it was tempting to drop big bucks on the party after being done with debt, Louis only spent a few hundred dollars on the festivities. “Having debt makes you value your money more,” the content creator says. Paying off the loans for her undergraduate and graduate education took four times longer than earning the degrees did.

Instead, she employed a do-it-yourself attitude to the occasion. The “private” chef and bartender at her party were the beloved husbands of her girlfriends who volunteered for the afternoon. She decorated and put together the party favors herself, too.

Cole’s party was a community effort. Her DJ friends offered their services for the night, and family members chipped in for food and refreshments. In a sequined dress and statement earrings, Cole decorated the rented venue with neon lights, shimmery tablecloths, and flower bouquets.

After Alyssa Cotten paid off her $60,000 student loans (including interest) in 2018, she hosted a “Popping Out of Debt” party at her Alaska home. Now 36, she says, “I mean honestly, who lets an 18-year-old take out 60 grand?”

“I put as much effort into this as I did my engagement party,” Cotten says. She hand-made invitations, decorated her home with big golden dollar-sign balloons, wore a shirt with bills all over its surface, fed her guests a three-course meal, and created a dessert spread of golden macaroons and cupcakes with the dollar signs poking out their sugary frosted tops — all on a $200 budget.

Raising A Glass To The Day-Ones

Cole commemorated the occasion by printing out the “paid-in-full notice” she received after making her last loan payment, then had everyone sign it like a wedding guestbook. Now, the page is framed next to her desk — a reminder of the decade-plus of steady payments she made and the people who helped her along the way.

Cotten also wanted to acknowledge her attendees. She had each guest write down an ambition and gave them a bottle of sparkling cider with a stipulation: They could pop it when they eventually accomplished their dream. “The whole theme was liberation, so the party was also a way for me to honor other people’s goals, too,” Cotten says.

Making Money Talk Less Taboo

As a young girl, “I heard so many horror stories of people feeling debilitated by their student loan debt, but I was not gonna let that be my narrative,” Cotten says. Instead, she worked both a full-time job as a mental health counselor and simultaneously started her own practice, working 60-hour weeks to repay her loans in just seven years.

She was the first one in her family to do so. “My parents grew up being so afraid of debt. They filed for bankruptcy when I was young, so they instilled in me that debt is terrible and the faster you can pay it off, the better,” Cotten says.

That was another reason Cotten wanted to celebrate: to make talking about personal finances less taboo. “Times are changing, and people are becoming more transparent,” Cotten says, which is essential in a culture where having money is just about the only way to live a dignified existence.

At the end of the party, Cotten projected her online loan payment dashboard on the wall. Friends lit sparklers attached to popped champagne bottles, transforming the living room into a dazzling, Vegas-like scene as she hit “submit” to make her final payment. The entire room burst into cheers, and Cotten couldn’t contain her emotions any longer. She cried tears of joy. With student loans behind her and pyrotechnics ablaze, her loved ones toasted to her being financially free at last.