According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, those with a college degree are two times as likely to find employment versus individuals who only have a high school diploma. The unemployment rate for those with a college degree is only have of what the national average is, around 4.1 percent, so getting a loan to go to school make a lot of sense.
However, student loans now exceed $1 trillion dollars, with $864 billion in federal loans and $150 billion in private loans. According to the Project on Student Debt, the average total of student debt for 4-year graduates is $24k, but in some states ranges as high as $30k.
A 2007 study by the College Board showed that those who earn a bachelor’s degree also earn over 60 percent more money than people who only received their high school diploma. The average lifetime earnings gap between high school graduates and college graduates is over $800,000. But the price of a college has increased more than 1,000 percent or more over the last three decades.
Washington D.C. has the highest average student loan debt, at $30,033. New Hampshire and Maine follow closely at a little over $29,000. Iowa, Vermont, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Alaska, and Ohio all have state averages above $25,000.
37,000,000 Americans have federal or private student loan debt. 10 percent of those in debt from student loans over $54,000. In 2012, student loan debt first exceeded 1,000,000,000,000 in March of 2012. The only type of consumer debt higher than student debt is mortgages.
The Department of Education estimates that the profits generated from student loan interest over the past five fiscal years is $101.8 billion. Student loan debt has grown 300 percent over the past eight years.
Today, 40 percent of households are headed by someone under the age of 35 who owes college debt, and more than 80 percent of bankruptcy attorney reported moderate-to-significant increase in client with student loan debt in 2012.
As for credit cards, 91 percent of undergraduates have at least one credit card, up from 76 percent in 2004. What’s even more surprising is that 50 percent of college student have four or more credit cards. The average credit card debt for an undergrad is at an all-time high, at $3,173.
In 2010, 20 percent of households had student loan debt in 2010, up 100 percent from 1989. While 10 percent of net income is recommended for paying debt obligations, people aged 18 to 24 are spending nearly 0 percent of their income on paying debt.
With these numbers, it is very clear there is a need for financial literacy. Studies have found that high school students lack understanding of basic personal finance concepts, with survey participants having an average of just 57 percent of the questions correct.
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