According to American Association of University Women.

Did you hear the news? As the first quarter of the year ending, currently there are around 44 million people that are holding a student loan debt in United States totaling at around $1.5 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. The challenge here is that students are holding the debt and paying them off is only becoming more challenging for borrowers. Women hold about two-thirds ($900 billion) of the debt, but that’s understandable as around 57% of college students are women.

Student loans for education has only been increasing. Since 1976, the cost of attending college has tripled (150%), meanwhile the average income only went up by about 20%.

Scroll Below for Interesting Graphs and my Perspective

Some Facts:

  • Americans owe $1.5 trillion in student debt
  • More women are taking out loans and when they do, they end up with an average of $2,745 more debt than a man upon finishing a bachelor’s degree
  • On average 7 out of 10 students take out loans to get a degree
  • Average person leaves school with around $30,000
  • Nearly 20 percent of students owe more than $100,000
  • Americans are now burdened more by a student loan debt than they are by auto debt or a credit card debt
  • Because of general gender pay gap, women have less money to pay for their education, thus resulting in more debt (Although I agree with this, I believe in college women earn more than man under 25 years old)
  • Student Debt currently exceeds auto loan debt of $1.1 trillion and credit card debt of $977 billion
  • On average, new grad with bachelors degree owes $28,400, up from $22,000 from 2016
  • 20% of borrowers are behind on payments
  • Some people “demographically” are hit much harder with the student loan debt than others
  • Men pay off around 13% of the debt per year, while women at 10% per year

Here are some interesting graphs from American Association of University Women

 

 

My Perspective on this Issue

With all of these alarming numbers I am honestly getting more concerned about where the education is going. I am hearing so much about students going back to school for education and schools having record numbers of students trying to enroll.

As more people are going back to get a degree seems to me that the value of education is only declining and soon enough, in fact already now what is happening, many students pursue the post undergraduate education because they cannot find a job in the field they have studied.

Another problem is that many students are unable to complete their education but their loans will still remain and make it even harder to pay them off. I am not sure where education is going but if it will be going the same way as it has been going for nearly 5 decades, we will see many changes soon to come.

What Should Happen?

Universities have become businesses now and as much as grants, scholarships are available to students, it is still not fixing the problem.

Universities are only profiting year after the year, there should be a regulation for each and every university on how much in percent they should be paying for student expenses like food, lowering living costs on campus or any other “money road block” that the student is facing while getting a degree.