Chicago ? At 24, Jeffrey Berman is in better financial shape than many of his peers.

He has no student loans, thanks to his parents, and about $1,200 in credit card debt, which he plans to pay off with his income tax return. He also just started contributing $85 a month to his 401(k) — an amount he considers paltry, but better than nothing.

Still, Berman knows he should be saving more money. And in a time when more companies are cutting pensions and Social Security remains a question mark, financial experts would agree — especially as young people’s debt from student loans and credit cards continues to skyrocket.

“The twentysomething generation, more than any other generation, is going to be left to fend for itself,” said Bill Slater, the St. Louis-based vice president of retirement and savings plans for the MetLife insurance company.

A recent survey of MetLife clients and employers found that 40 percent of workers ages 21 to 30 had not begun to save for retirement — and many young adults have little clue how to even begin doing so.

“It’s impossible. No one teaches you what you’re supposed to do,” said Berman, who graduated from Syracuse University two years ago and now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as an assistant to an entertainment studio executive. “It’s a real shock getting out into the real world.”

Growing up in the comfort of more prosperous times has made the adjustment that much more difficult for this generation of twentysomethings, one expert says.

“Through high school, the stock market was doing great; unemployment was low,” said Catherine Williams, the Chicago-based vice president of financial literacy for Money Management International, a consumer credit counseling service. That caused many young people to have high expectations about their own financial futures — until reality hit.

One example of the financial pinch: Student loan balances for the average college graduate were $18,900 in 2002, more than double the amount a decade earlier, even when adjusted for inflation, according to researchers at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy group.