Editor’s note: This story is part of AP’s “Why It Matters” series, which will examine issues at stake in the presidential election between now and Election Day.
WASHINGTON – More Americans are getting buried by student debt – causing delays in home ownership, limiting how much people can save and leaving taxpayers at risk as many loans go unpaid. The statistics look daunting.
Student debt now totals around $1.26 trillion. This amounts to a stunning 350 percent increase since 2005, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Not everyone sees that surge as troubling. President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers issued a report this year saying the debt is beneficial because college graduates earn more money than people with only high school degrees.
But college drop-outs who borrow are increasingly less likely to repay their loans, as are former students at for-profit colleges that in some cases never provided the stable careers promised in their brochures. Nor are college graduates necessarily repaying their loans, a reflection of the stagnating incomes for many.
More than 60 percent of the class of 2014 graduated with debt that averaged nearly $27,000, according to the College Board. Not all that taxpayer-backed debt is getting repaid. Out of the 43 million Americans with student debt, roughly 16 percent are in long-term default -a potential hit in excess of $100 billion that taxpayers would absorb.