Perhaps not surprisingly, students from the poorest households are shouldering a disproportionate share of the pain from rising college costs. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, they are borrowing at far higher levels as a share of family income than ever.
It is now the norm for U.S. students from the lowest income bracket to borrow at least half of their household income to attend most four year colleges. At nearly sixty percent of four year colleges that produce sufficient quantities of data, students from households earning thirty thousand dollars or less a year left those schools during the twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen school years owing a median of fifteen thousand dollars or more in total debt.
Ten years ago, only about eighteen percent of four year institutions had such high debt burdens among students in the same income bracket. Tuition increases are one of the main drivers of rising debt. Among four year schools with analyzable data, the average increase in tuition and fees was greater than seventy five percent over the past decade, easily outpacing general inflation.
