Ending the Debt-For-Diploma System
Student debt has skyrocketed over the past decade, quadrupling from just $240 billion in 2003 to more than $1 trillion today. If current borrowing patterns continue, student debt levels will reach $2 trillion in 2025. Average debt levels have risen rapidly as well: two-thirds (66 percent) of college seniors now graduate with an average of $26,600 in student loans, up from 41 percent in 1989. These trends are all part of the rise of the “debt-for-diploma” system.
How Did We Get Here? State Disinvestment
Until about the mid-1990s, state universities and colleges were affordable for middle-income households. Lower-income students could pay the bill with grants and part-time jobs. Debt was the exception, not the rule.
This current debt-for-diploma system is the result of overlapping trends, including the steady decline in public investment in state colleges and universities, down 25 percent per full-time equivalent student since 2000. State policy decisions are largely responsible for this major cost shift onto students and families (Figure 1).
Author Information
|
DemosPosted on 16 December 2013 |
| Demos is a public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. Their name means “the people.” It is the root word of democracy, and it reminds us that in America, the true source of our greatness is the diversity… | |
| Visit Website | Follow @Demos_Org |