College Affordability (or Lack Thereof)

Some facts about the rising costs of higher education from the Debt Hits Hard Campaign:

Rampantly Unaffordable Costs

• Over six in ten college graduates are burdened with educational debt. Of those, four in ten, and more than half of African-American and Hispanic borrowers, are burdened with an unmanageable level of debt. (Financial experts define unmanageable debt as the salary-to-debt threshold at which an individual is only able to repay his/her loans with significant economic hardship.)
• Total student debt in the United States is more than $438 billion – and that’s not including private loans.
• Between 2001 and 2010, 2 million academically qualified students will not go to college because they can't afford it.
• The average student today graduates with debt almost three and a half times that of graduates a decade ago -- and enters a job market where the average job pays them less than it would have in 2000.
• The general cost of living is increasing at a rapid pace. College textbooks, for instance, have tripled in price since 1986 and are becoming ever-larger culprits of student debt.
• Because interest on loans grows fast, every dollar someone spends while living on student loans could cost $50 or more in the future.
• The average college senior now graduates with $3200 in credit card debt and $18,900 in student loans.
• Graduates of public colleges and universities accumulate almost as much debt as their peers at private institutions.

Stymied Possibilities

• Student debt is outpacing the starting salaries of jobs in teaching and social work, making it virtually impossible for many debt-laden graduates to pursue careers in fields where they are desperately needed. Nearly one quarter of all graduates from public universities and almost 4 in 10 graduates from private universities have levels of student debt that would become unmanageable at the salaries of starting teachers.
• More and more students are delaying major life decisions as a result of increased student debt. Thirty-eight percent of college graduates delay buying their first house because of debt, 14% delay marriage, 14% delay having kids. Compared to 1991, those figures have risen by margins of 52%, 75 % and 100%, respectively.