When you’re the one living with student loan debt, you feel the increasing financial burden of your education. But what can you do when it seems like the rest of the country just doesn’t get it. You might even hear things like, actually college is getting cheaper because there is more aid available. Then why is student loan debt going up?
Today’s post is all about the spooky stats of student loan debt. It’s not pretty but if we hope to create a movement that propagates sweeping change we’ve got to face the facts.
Check out the info-graphic below and read the article for a brief explanation (and citation) of each statistic.
Sheer Amount
Student loan debt is the second highest consumer debt in the U.S. Student loan debt is second only to mortgage debt coming in at a grand total of around $1.3 trillion dollars.
Skyrocketing Cost
The cost of attendance (tuition + fees) at all colleges has increased nearly 3 fold since 1963. Average cost of tuition & fees for all institutions in 1963-1964 was $3,900 in 2014-2015 it was $11,487[1]. That’s a 2.95-fold increase!!! Essentially tuition and fees cost three times the amount today as they did in 1963.
[1] NCES Table 330.10 Average tuition and required fees, all institutions.
Public Tuition
Tuition and fees at public universities have increased more than 400% since 1963. In 1963-1964 tuition and fees at 4 year public institutions was $1,867 and in 2014-2015 it was $8,543.[1] This means the cost of tuition and fees more than quadrupled at 4-year public institutions!
[1] NCES Table 330.10 Tuition and fees, 4-year public institutions
Sticker Shock
The average class of 2016 college graduate has over $37,000 in student loan debt. The amount of student loan debt borrowers graduate with has risen at more than twice the rate of inflation in the last 10 years.
Still Growing
Student loan debt is increasing by $2,726 every second. You can watch the doomsday clock…. er student loan debt clock tick onward here.
These stats aren’t here to scare you, rather they’re here to prepare you. It’s only by knowing and understanding the truth that we can build a movement to change the way we fund higher education in America.
If you found the article or info-graphic helpful please share it with someone you know. Information is the start of transformation.
To get involved in the movement to make student loan debt truly repayable head over to repayable.org where you can sign up for details about the Repayable book (out Dec 1st). Repayable is your one stop source for everything student loan debt related.
For more student loan tidbits check out the Repayable Facebook Page #1bookvs1trillion.
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