A new study (abstract available here) from the National Bureau of Economic Research tracks 10 year student loan default rates for those who earned bachelor's degrees in 1993. The study warns against common assumptions about who may default. "Given the importance of post-school earnings for repayment, it is natural to expect that differences in average earnings levels across demographic groups or college majors would translate into corresponding differences in repayment/nonpayment rates, but this is not always the case," the report says. Read more...
Show Me the Money: Higher Education and the Workforce
By Brian C. Mitchell. Writing for the Associated Press, Hope Yen reported recently that the earnings gap between young adults with and without bachelor's degrees has stretched to its widest level in nearly half a century. She suggested that it is a sign of the growing value of a college education despite rising tuition costs.
Citing Pew Research Center data, Ms. Yen noted that Pew found that even among the two thirds of young adults who borrowed money for college, about 86 percent said the degrees had been, or will be, worth it. More...