Trends in Student Debt: Things Worth Noting

The Department of Education’s Trends in Debt for Bachelor’s Degree Recipients a Year After Graduation: 1994, 2001, and 2009 contains a number of interesting figures (all dollar amounts are adjusted for inflation).

From 1994 to 2009…

• Average debt increased $10,000 (Table 1), while average salary increased by just $1,200 (Table 13)
• The percent of graduates taking out loans increased from 42% to 62% (Table 2)
• Graduates not working in their final year in school increased from 38% to 53% (Table 2)
• Median monthly loan payments as a percentage of monthly salary increased by 1.2% from 1994 to 2009, to 8%. For the lowest income group of graduates, this figure increased from 13% to 34% (Table 6)
• The ratio of federal loans borrowed to annual income increased from 49 to 62 (Table 8)
• The percent of graduates enrolling in graduate school increased from 16% to 25% (Table 10)
• The percent of students paying more than 17% of their salary in student loan payments almost doubled to 19% (Table 7)
• A surprisingly high proportion of Asian graduates are out of the labor force [AG: a grad school effect?] (Table 12)

From 2001 to 2009…

• The percentage of employed first-time bachelor’s degree recipients who considered their current job at the start of their career “Not at all related” to their major increased from 23% in 2001 to 28% in 2009 (Table 11)
• Average debt increased by ~$3,000, but federal debt fell by ~$2,000 (Tables 1 and 2)
• The percent of graduates repaying 1 year after graduation decreased from 66% to 60% (Table 3)
• The percent of parents helping with student loans held pretty steady at around 11% (Table 9)
• The percent of graduates living with parents or in-laws increased from 16% to 26% (Table 15)