I believe this is behind a paywall... here are the interesting nuggets:
The number of Americans severely behind on payments on federal student loans reached roughly 4.6 million in the third quarter, a doubling from four years ago, despite a historically long stretch of U.S. job creation and steady economic growth.
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The government’s student-loan portfolio now totals $1.37 trillion. That figure includes debt in repayment; debt for which borrowers aren’t required to be paying down because they are in school or have otherwise been granted temporary reprieves; and debt from an older program that guaranteed loans made by private lenders.
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“It’s kind of phenomenal given all the tools we have at this point to avoid default that this many people are still winding up in default,” said Clare McCann, an education-policy analyst at New America, a center-left think tank.
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In some ways, the outlook for the federal student loan program has improved. The rise in default in part reflects an overall increase in Americans entering the repayment cycle. As a share of all borrowers in repayment, new defaults fell in the third quarter compared with a year earlier.
Student loans are making up an ever-increasing portion of the national debt, and an increasing number defaults is not such a great thing, even though the default rate is lower...
Submitted December 14, 2017 at 01:58PM by cjw_5110 http://ift.tt/2o3YDpj
