Rising tuition leaving students in heavy debt
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Student loan debt is a real drag for many young Texans trying to achieve liftoff.
A growing percentage of college graduates are launching their careers heavily weighted with student loan debt that might take decades to pay back.
This only undercuts the ongoing efforts to increase access to college and improve graduation rates.
In Texas, 45 percent of 2018 public college graduates had student loan debt. On average they owed $30,825, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
This brings us to credit defaults. The default rate on college loans in Bexar County is one of the highest among the state’s urban counties at 13.1 percent. This compares to a loan delinquency rate of 5.8 percent in 2003.
In Texas, the deregulation of tuition in 2003, allowing university systems to set tuition instead of the Legislature, was touted as a means of lowering rates. That premise might have proven true if state lawmakers kept their end of the bargain and continued funding higher education at the same level.
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