Student Loan Debt Spirals at For-Profit Colleges

Despite the publicity lately surrounding an ostensible "student loan crisis" containing saddled a generation of faculty students and their parents with overwhelming numbers of student loan debt, a large number of school students have been graduating with no debt from student loans, newly released data has revealed.

However, the likelihood a student will need on all students loan debt depends largely for the type of school he or she attends, with students at for-profit career schools, online schools, vocational training programs, as well as other for-profit institutions tending to depend upon student education loans in greater proportions.

 Many College Students Eschewing Student Loans

About one inch three college graduates leaves school with no debt from student education loans, as outlined by data published by the U.S. Department of Education included in its National Post secondary Student Aid Study, that is conducted every four years.

Of those students who earned a bachelor?s degree in the 2007?08 academic year, 34 percent graduated without any debt from student loans ? a figure containing held steady over the past four years. Of those students who earned either a two-year or four-year degree or certificate, 41 percent graduated without student loan debt.

 The For-Profit Exception: Student Loan Debt Saturates Career Schools

A breakdown of the NASA student loan debt data, however, reveals that student loan borrowing diverges widely across types of advanced schooling institutions, with students at for-profit colleges borrowing money for his or her education more frequently and in larger amounts.

Virtually all for-profit students are graduating with no less than some debt from college loans.

Among graduates of two-year associate degree programs, as an example, whereas only 38 percent of the in public areas programs left school with at the very least one education loan, 98 percent of those in for-profit programs managed it.

Among graduates of two-year certificate programs, only 30 percent of students in public areas programs left school with education debt, while 90 percent of students in the for-profit programs did so.

Of those students who earned bachelor?s degrees, 62 percent of these in public places four-year programs and 72 percent of people in private four-year programs graduated with debt from student loans, while 96 percent of students in for-profit bachelor?s programs did.

 More Private Student Loans Seen at Career Schools

Students in for-profit programs were also more inclined than their private and public counterparts to go out of school with debt from non-federal private school loans.

Overall, 30 percent of students earning a advanced schooling degree in 2007?08 had applied for private education loans. But the percentages were greater among students of for-profit schools.

Among graduates of associate degree programs, 60 % of those in for-profit programs had taken on debt from private education loans, in comparison to just 15 percent of those in public two-year programs.