New Data Gives Clearer Picture of Student Debt – But What About Student Assets? Do They Have Them? AND What Data? Appropriate Data? I’m Afraid Not

The increases in debt and default rates are concentrated among students at for-profit and community colleges, even though those students borrow less on average.

Source: New Data Gives Clearer Picture of Student Debt – The New York Times

Here was my comment.

Two points, one just about data, the other simple business sense.

First, the data.

The author uses unemployment data for ALL college grads over 25. Those numbers are highly misrepresentative. Unemployment for college graduates 22-27 usually is around 4-5%. In 2011, it was 8%.

But that is just a measure of employment. It’s much worse when you look at salaries.

In 2011, only 62% of 2009’s grads had full-time jobs paying over $30,000/year. (See figure 3-2 in Arum and Roksa’s “Aspiring Adults Adrift”.)

Added 9/11/ AM I looked at the study the author relies on.  They only look at students who are in “repayment”.  I believe that excludes unemployed and those going further in school.

(Look on my blog inside-higher-ed for an explanation of the salary discrepancy. Search under “median”.)

Now for the second point. Why are we talking just about debt? That debt went to pay for an asset. That’s what the colleges tell us. What is the value of that asset? Singling out only the debt portion of a balance sheet seems to be a little too trusting of the seller of the asset.