Student debt rising, but graduation rates flat

08-08-2011

By Erica Perez/California Watch

A new report finds that it's taking increasingly more student debt to produce a degree in this country – meaning that while students are collectively paying more for an education, the nation's colleges and universities aren't producing a proportionate increase in degrees and certificates. The report from the Washington, D.C.-based research group Education Sector created a new measurement of colleges' success based on publicly available data on student debt and graduation. The figure, called the borrowing-to-credential ratio, looks at the total amount of student borrowing at a university during a three-year period and divides it by the number of people who earn degrees in that period. Nationally, the average amount of debt it takes to produce a degree increased steadily during the three years studied, from $13,334 per credential in 2006-07 to $18,102 in 2008-09. (more...)

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Student debt rising, but graduation rates flat

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