Federal Student Loan Default Rates on the Rise
The U.S. Department of Education released new data showing that the national “cohort default rate” on federal student loans is 7.0 percent for borrowers who entered repayment in 2008, up from 6.7 percent last year. The default rate at for-profit colleges is highest at 11.6 percent – almost double the average rate for public colleges. Nearly half of all defaulters (43 percent) attended for-profit schools, even though these schools enrolled only about ten percent of all college students during the relevant time period.
