Student Debt Dilemma

College student loan debt has become a central focus of students and policymakers in the United States. Over the past ten years, the volume of outstanding college student loan debt has tripled, reaching more than $1 trillion and raising concerns for both students and policymakers. At the same time, enrollments in for-profit colleges spiked, rising from about 650,000 in 2000 to close to 2.5 million in 2010. Increased scrutiny and regulation of the for-profit sector has contributed to declining enrollment in recent years, but concerns remain over the high debt burdens and default rates of for-profit students.

Borrowing behavior across sectors and over time

In a Brown Center report we released today, we explore the trends in students’ borrowing across sectors and examine how they have changed over time. Overall, the patterns of for-profit student borrowing look most similar to private nonprofit student borrowing. Relative to students in the public sector, for-profit and private nonprofit students are much more likely to borrow to finance their higher education, they borrow larger amounts of money, and also supplement federal borrowing with borrowing from nonfederal sources, which tend to have less-favorable terms.

Read Full Article »
Comment
Show commentsHide Comments

Related Articles