Student loan debt is especially burdensome in Pennsylvania, studies show
Pennsylvania has the highest average student loan debt per borrower in the country at $35,185, LendEDU found in a report published earlier this month.
Pennsylvania has the highest average student loan debt per borrower in the country at $35,185, LendEDU found in a report published earlier this month.
School is back in session and well underway.
And so is the deepening of student loan debt for many attendees of local colleges and universities.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to borrowing what you know you can pay back,” advised Nate Matherson, cofounder and CEO of LendEDU, a marketplace for student loan refinancing and private student loans.
But students in Pennsylvania are having to pay back more than their counterparts in other states, according to multiple recent studies.
Pennsylvania has the highest average student loan debt per borrower in the country at $35,185, LendEDU found in a report published earlier this month.
“Sixty-nine percent of grads in Pennsylvania have student loan debt in the Class of 2016,” Matherson said. “Nationally, it’s only 59 percent.”
Pennsylvania has the second-highest average student loan debt and third-highest proportion of students with debt, according to a WalletHub study published earlier this month.
“Seek assistance in basic financial literacy information … construct a budget,” WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez recommended borrowers who are deep in student loan debt in an email. “Be mindful of purchases, and while you are still indebted, live accordingly – a nice new apartment fresh out of college shouldn’t be the goal.”
Matherson added that college students shouldn’t stop applying for scholarships while in college, and that graduates should look into refinancing student loans.
A large number of private institutions of higher learning in Pennsylvania is likely driving the state’s student loan debt statistics up, Matherson said.
But Matherson also noted that the rising loan debt for students at public universities has played a role in the state’s average loan debt per borrower creeping up even as it decreases elsewhere in the country.
Of the 65 public four-year colleges and universities in the nation with the highest average student loan debt per borrower in LendEDU’s report, 10 are Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) member schools.
California University of Pennsylvania, however, is one of only two PASSHE schools not listed in the top 168 in LendEDU’s list of the public schools with the highest average student loan debt per borrower nationwide. The other, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, was not listed in the report, which required self-reported data from the 1,161 institutions that provided enough data to be included in the study.
Cal U instead ranks 161st on LendEDU’s list of lowest average debt per borrower in the country for public four-year colleges and universities, at $25,683, with a 8.27 percent decrease in average debt per borrower from the Class of 2015 to the Class of 2016.
Penn State campuses throughout the state ranked high in student loan debt per borrower among public institutions. Five of the top 10 public four-year colleges and universities with the highest average debt per borrower in the study were Penn State schools (Penn State’s Hazleton, Greater Allegheny, Harrisburg, Altoona and Schuylkill campuses, respectively). Penn State Fayette was not listed in the study.
Penn State University Park ranked 28th in the country in highest average student loan debt per borrower among public four-year colleges and universities, at $37,213, while the University of Pittsburgh ranked 22nd at $38,612.
“I think it all plays together,” Matherson said of public and private institutions statewide contributing to Pennsylvania’s high average student debt numbers.
Gonzalez thinks the institutions adding to those numbers can do more to start collectively subtracting instead.
“Spending in non-academic areas, such as college administration and athletics, should not be as significant as it currently is,” Gonzalez said. “(It) contributes to increased higher education costs that do not necessarily benefit students.”