Rising Student Loan Debt Testament to Decreasing College Affordability
Rising Student Loan Debt Testament to Decreasing College Affordability
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Home Page > Education > College and University > Rising Student Loan Debt Testament to Decreasing College Affordability
Rising Student Loan Debt Testament to Decreasing College Affordability
Posted: Jul 01, 2009 |Comments: 0
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Over the last 10 years, not only have more undergraduate and graduate students been taking out student loans to pay for school, but they’ve been borrowing exponentially more.
While some authorities in higher education and financial aid attribute this trend to students becoming overborrowers — maxing out their federal college loans and adding on private student loans just because they can — others say the increase in reliance on student loans is due to the fact that college affordability has moved increasingly out of reach.
“It used to be that, 10 to 20 years ago, if you went to a four-year public institution, had a low to moderate income, and worked a reasonable amount part-time in school, there was enough aid and public institutions were better financed, so you could come out with no debt,” Lauren Asher, acting president of the Project on Student Debt, told The Chronicle of Higher Education. “That same student now would have to borrow to get their education.”
Tuition Keeps Rising, Students Keep Borrowing
College costs have soared in the past decade at both public and private institutions, with college students across the country being subjected to near-yearly tuition increases. In just the last year, even as unemployment has soared and retailers and service providers in every sector — from airlines to car dealers to clothing stores — have slashed prices in response to diminished consumer spending and contracting sales, tuition and fees at both two-year and four-year colleges and universities have continued to rise.
For the 2008–09 academic year, according to the College Board, in-state tuition and fees at four-year public institutions were up, on average, by 6.4 percent to ,585, compared to the previous school year. Out-of-state tuition and fees were up by 5.2 percent to ,452. Tuition and fees at public two-year colleges rose by 4.7 percent to ,402, and at four-year universities by 5.9 percent to ,143.
Student borrowers have had to adjust accordingly.
In 1993, fewer than half of graduating college seniors had taken out student loans to finance their undergraduate education, according to the Project on Student Debt. By 2003, that number had climbed to over 65 percent. For the students graduating with student loans, the average student loan debt amount more than doubled in those same 10 years, jumping from ,250 in 1993 to ,200 in 2003.
Today, about 8 percent of undergraduate students currently carry college loans in amounts more than double the national average.
Borrower Education Lacking for Student Loans
Part of the problem, financial aid experts say, is that many students pay little attention to their college costs and how much they’ll need to borrow in student loans to cover those costs, particularly when it comes to attending their dream school.
“They want to be able to pay for the school they have wanted to go to for as long as they can