Student loan debt: Background data

Here are some interesting links, graphics, data and some analysis of student college debt in America. None of it includes rational argument or justification for loan debt forgiveness.

• Education Data Initiative (July 29, 2022) Student Loan Debt Statistics [2022]

• Investopedia (August 4, 2022) Student Loan Debt by Race

According to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at $44,880 on average, Black borrowers took out the largest amount of federal student loan money in 2019. Although “Other” was technically the second highest, at $40,400, it’s unclear from the Fed’s website which groups comprise this category, which limits its effectiveness in comparisons. White borrowers accounted for the second-largest amount for a single group. Finally, Hispanic borrowers took out the smallest amount on average, at $30,890.

• Washington Post (May 22, 2022) Who has student loan debt in America?

• NBC News (August 24, 2022) Student loan debt in America, in four charts

• Nerd wallet (August 24, 2022) Student Loan Debt Statistics: 2022

• Brookings Institute (January 20, 2020) Who owes all that student debt? And who'd benefit if it were forgiven?

One canard, perpetuated by Brookings is the claim, "Over the course of a career, the typical worker with a bachelor’s degree earns nearly $1 million more than an otherwise similar worker with just a high school diploma if both work fulltime, year-round from age 25."

• Comparison of age 25 as the start of earnings for high school grads eliminates seven years of earnings from the high school grad's career. They call this opportunity cost of the college grad.

• The figures start a college grads earnings at the age of 25 but makes no accounting for the cost of attending college. This is a significant economic cost, and one that has risen sharply in the past forty years.

• The $300k you decline to spend on four years of college invested in the stock market would be worth well more than the "million dollar difference" earned by a college graduate.

• While the average college grad might earn $1 million more than the high school grad between ages 25 and 65, there are millions of grad earning well below that average, even from "top-tier" schools, when the student earns a degree in poorly remunerated majors.

• These claims are based on historic data and not on future earnings. What happened to high school and college grads for forty years after 1972 is not a good or valid predictor of what will happen to similar grads over the coming g forty years.

Here is a good analysis of just how ill-conceived, biased and absurd the idea of forgiving loans can really be:

Student-Loan Forgiveness Is Really a Bailout for Woke Higher Ed - WSJ.pdf

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