
Diplomas and Debt
The class of 2015: most indebted class of all time, replacing class of 2014
Debt Data
2015-2016 school year: total education debt (including federal and private education loans) will reach almost $68 billion.
71: percentage of 2015 bachelor’s degree holders graduating with student loan debt
10 years ago: that was 64 percent.
20 years ago: under 50 percent.
17: percentage of graduates have parents with loans out on their behalf.
Total Education Student Debt (in billions)
$35,051: average amount of per student debt, class of 2015
That’s –
About $2,000 more than those graduated in 2014
And 2X more than what borrowers owed 20 years earlier.
Average Debt per Borrower
Average amount of student debt for borrowers in the class of 1992-93 was $12,434
From 1995 to 2015:
• The average tuition and fees at private National Universities increased by 179 percent.
• Out-of-state tuition and fees at public universities rose 226
• In-state tuition and fees at public National Universities grew by 296 percent.
More people are borrowing.
We recommend that before you take out student loan debt, you play around with a student loan repayment calculator like this interactive one we found from RefinanceStudentLoans.net The more ways you have of visualizing and understanding your debt, the better prepared you’ll be to pay it off. Before collecting student loan debt, understand it.
Between 2000 and 2014:
• Total outstanding federal student debt quadrupled, tops $1.1 trillion
• Number of student loan borrowers more than doubled to 42 million
The number of active student loan borrowers peaked at 12 million in 2010.
That number is now down to roughly 9 million.
Half of active borrowers are under age 25
Those who borrow aren’t paying it down.
Student Loan Repayment Status 2014
17% of borrowers in default or delinquency
33% are current on their loans but their balance is increasing.
13% are current on their loans but their balance remains the same.
37% are current on their loans and actively paying down their balance.
Sources:
http://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2015-data-and-charts
http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/mediaadvisory/2015/Student-Loan-Press-Briefing-Presentation.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2015/07/29/chart-see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/class-of-2015-has-the-most-student-debt-in-us-history-2015-05-08
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/08/congratulations-class-of-2015-youre-the-most-indebted-ever-for-now/
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/10/07/the-growth-in-student-debt/
http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/papers/2015/looney-yannelis-student-loan-defaults
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/upshot/new-data-gives-clearer-picture-of-student-debt.html?_r=1