When it comes to student loans, there are some big, frightening numbers thrown around, like $1.5 trillion in total outstanding debt and 45 million student loan holders. We even hear it’s a national crisis.
But let’s break it down a bit. I used data from
credible.com and the federal government to work through four of the student loan myths you may hear:
Myth #1: Student loans are out of control.
Reality: Some of those big numbers you see contain graduate school loans, and those students take out the big loans because they can confidently anticipate getting paid the big bucks – average grad school student loan debt is $84,300. In fact only 6.2% of borrowers owe $100,000 or more, but they constitute about one-third of the total outstanding debt. That’s $500 billion! On the other end nearly 36%, more than one-third, owe less than $10,000
