Students Carrying a Debt Load of $25000 on their Shoulders

College education fees are draining the funds of the cash-strapped consumers. According to a recent survey, college students carried a debt load of $25,000 (on an average) on their shoulder in the year 2010. This figure is 5% more than that of the previous year, 2009. This indicates that students are carrying 2 things with them after finishing their higher studies - graduation certificates and debt.

Student debt level has increased in the year 2010

The student loan debt level on an average was around $25,250 in 2010. It is said that in the state of Maryland, students owed around $21,000 on their educational loans. This is nearly a 9% increase from the last year 2009.

The increase in the student debt level is mainly attributed to the ever rising tuition fees. In the current economic state, most of the parents and students can’t afford to pay the high tuition fees nowadays. Therefore, students are compelled to depend upon the educational loans to meet their college expenses. Financial experts are of the opinion that if the federal grant aid was not increased by the government, then the student loan debt level would have been much higher in the year 2010.

The financial condition of the country was not this bad when the 2010 graduates had enrolled into the colleges. However, the financial health of the nation started deteriorating when the students were still studying. This made it quite difficult for the students and the guardians to cope up with the increasing college costs.

The unemployment rate in the year 2010 was 8.7%. However, this figure rose to 9.1% in the year 2011. Fresh graduates were not able to get jobs in the year 2010, and this made the situation worse for them. If the fresh graduates are not able to secure jobs, then it is not possible for them to meet their daily expenses or pay back their creditors.

The condition of the students graduating from the for-profit colleges is even worse. It is said that around 96% of the students take out educational loans every year and around 50% of them borrow more than what they ought to. So, it can be easily guessed that half of the students are not able to pay off their loans each year.

The student loan debt level varies from place to place. The average debt load in Utah was nearly $15,500. On the other hand the debt level in New Hampshire was nearly $31,050 in 2010. The students belonging to the North-Eastern part of the country carried greater debt load than the Western counterparts. The students in Maine owed around $29,983 on their educational loan whereas the students in the state of Hawaii owed nearly 15,500 to their lenders.

Usually, the student debt level fluctuates between $950 and $55,000 in the colleges. The result of the survey showed that nearly 90% students of around 73 colleges graduated with student debt load. The colleges from where the students have graduated with highest debt load are given below:

1. California Institute of Arts
2. New York University
3. Temple University
4. Florida Institute of Technology
5. Kentucky State University

Some of the states with the lowest debt load are Princeton University and Williams College.

It is said that the tuition fees have risen by 7.3% at several colleges in 2011. This is an extremely bad news for the undergraduates because most of the state governments are curtailing financial support for college education.

Finally, the survey was conducted amongst 1067 colleges across the country. This means not all the private and community colleges were included in the survey. This means that the actual debt load is much higher than what has been shown in the report.