That contrast is yet another indication of how student debt has reshaped the financial experience of young people post-college. Just ask 24-year-old Matthew Rogge of Lincoln, Nebraska, another poll respondent who considers himself lucky to hold down a full-time job after he graduated in May 2014. Rogge’s $40,000 in student debt hangs over him, he says. “It makes it hard to save,” he adds, even with his job as a general manager for a small, local catering company. “Honestly, I would not have even needed to go to school for the job I am in now.”

The increasing weight of student loans was apparent again when the poll asked respondents their view on how young people should use their disposable income. Young people said that the best use of any extra money was to pay off debt like credit cards and student loans (32 percent), followed by building up an emergency fund (21 percent) and saving for a major purchase like a car (15 percent). Older people—when asked what they wish they had done differently in their early financial lives—cited investing in a retirement account (26 percent); saving to buy a home (15 percent); and paying off credit-card debt or student loans (14 percent) as the best use of any extra money. (Older people with student debt answered that question somewhat differently, giving equal weight to saving for retirement and paying off student loans. There was no meaningful difference on that question among younger people with and without student debt.

One striking contrast is that while older people were most likely to cite not saving enough for retirement as their biggest financial regret, only one-in-10 younger respondents identified retirement savings as the best use for any extra cash (fewer than the share who picked any option except saving for their own children’s college education).

Both older and young respondents held similar ideas about the amount of money that a young person would need to feel financially secure. Twenty-three percent of both young and older respondents pinpointed a salary of $50,000 as the sufficient wage for anyone starting out. Nearly two-in-four of the older respondents, and exactly three-in-10 younger ones, said a smaller wage would be enough; another roughly one-fifth of the older group and one-fourth of the younger picked $60,000 or $70,000. A relatively small 13 percent of the older cohort, and 17 percent of the younger cohort, thought a young person would need more than that.

For young and old alike, the poll suggests, debt now looms as a major factor in setting their life course. An identical 38 percent of both young and older respondents said that in making decisions such as when to get married, buy a home, or have children, debt had affected their choices “a great deal.” Roughly another three-in-10 in both groups said debt had colored their decisions at least somewhat.

Forty-six-year-old David Arn of Ripley, Ohio knows the perils of debt firsthand. The married father of four, who works as a manufacturing manager, took on personal and credit-card debt early on in his married life to make ends meet; now, he and his wife are still financially digging themselves out of those decisions.