If you ever come across a story regarding higher education in the United States, chances are it’s going to be about staggering student loan debt levels.
With a bachelor’s degree being essential for any young adult that wishes to be competitive in the job market, and with the cost to obtain that college degree increasing by the year, an environment has been created for student loan debt to continue skyrocketing.
While we do not know precisely how much student loan debt will increase by over the years ahead, LendEDU licensed financial aid data covering nearly 1,000 colleges and universities allowing us to evaluate how the student loan debt situation across the country has changed in the past 10 years.
As one might expect, student loan debt levels from 2007 to 2017 have generally worsened across the board.
For reference, the financial aid data for the 2016-2017 academic year was the most recent and fully available dataset available, which is why this decade comparison runs from 2007 to 2017.
At Historically Black Colleges & Universities, Student Loan Debt Has Increased at a Faster Clip
One of the most interesting trends from the financial aid data that LendEDU licensed was that the student loan debt situation at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) has worsened at an alarming rate when compared to other types of institutions.
For example, when accounting for the student loan debt data in both 2007 and 2017 at all 922 colleges and universities involved in this study, the percentage of graduates with student loan debt has experienced a median difference of 0%.
However, at HBCUs the percentage of graduates with student loan debt has increased by 7% from 2007 to 2017.
Further, at HBCUs the average debt per borrower figure has increased by 54.5% from 2007 to 2017, while the overall increase for all colleges throughout the country was 46.67%.
As the price tag for attending an undergraduate institution in the U.S. has ballooned, it is entirely possible that black students have not been able to keep pace with the increase and have had to turn to student loans much more frequently to afford the cost of a college education.
A Look at Student Loan Debt Figures Over the Decade at Specific Schools
At the University of the Incarnate World in Florida, the average debt per borrower figure went from $30,613 in 2007 to $6,271 in 2017, or a percentage decrease of 79.52%, which was the largest such decrease out of all 922 colleges analyzed.
In terms of the percentage of graduates with student loan debt, Berea College in Kentucky experienced a 54% drop-off in the percentage of graduates that left campus with student loan debt.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Crossroads Bible College in Indiana watched their average student debt per borrower figure increase from $0 in 2007 to $37,497 in 2017.
When it came to stats regarding the percentage of graduates with student loan debt, Mayville State University in North Dakota saw a 95 percentage point increase after having no graduates with student loan debt in 2007 to 95% of graduates having debt in 2017.
Ivy League Institutions Have Done a Great Job at Reducing the Need For Student Loans
One of the more interesting trends from the research was seeing Ivy League colleges and universities greatly reduce the number of graduates that needed to take on student loan debt to attend those institutions.
For example, Yale only had 16% of their graduates leave with debt in 2017 after reducing their percentage by 18% from 2007. While, Princeton University reduced their percentage by 5%, but only 17% of their graduates had student debt in 2017.
Generally, people tend to associate elite institutions, like those in the Ivy League, with high tuition rates that only a select few can afford. However, it is clear that those Ivy League members are taking unique approaches to tackling the need for student loan debt through things like more generous financial aid packages or scholarships.
Are Northeast Colleges and Universities Becoming Harder to Afford?
When it came to all 922 institutions included in the study, a large contingent of schools that experienced the highest increases in their average debt per borrower figures were from the Northeast.
For example, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts in New York saw an increase of $40,997 in their debt per borrower figure from 2007 to 2017, while the New York School of Interior Design experienced an increase of $35,401.
With the Northeast region being amongst the most expensive parts of the country, it could be that students attending colleges in this area are needing to take on more student loan debt to not only afford tuition, but general living expenses as well.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, taking on student loan debt to afford a college degree is simply a necessity for so many young adults in the U.S. After debt-free financing options like scholarships and grants have been exhausted, most have no other option but to turn to federal and private student loans to pay for college.
Because of this reality, the student loan debt situation in this country will probably continue to worsen over the years to come. Only when we come up with outside-the-box solutions to the issue can we start making progress.
How do we do this?
For one, lawmakers can look at the data from the LendEDU report to uncover specific colleges that are displaying a pattern of unusually high student loan debt figures and look to address the issues at those colleges through new laws that hold them to a higher standard of accountability.
Second, financial aid administrators should turn to this debt-by-decade data to look for schools that have done a great job over 10 years at reducing student loan debt on campus. They should look at these schools, like the Ivy League members, to see what strategies they are employing to solve student loan debt and if those same tactics can be applied to their institutions.
