New Default Rate Data Shows Increased Borrower Distress

Last week the U.S. Department of Education released aggregate two-year cohort default rates for fiscal year 2009. The new numbers capture total counts of student loan borrowers who entered repayment in FY 2009 and had defaulted by the end of FY 2010.

Individual college’s CDRs will not be made public until September, but the aggregate figures show some alarming trends. Across all colleges, about 328,000 borrowers who entered repayment in 2009 defaulted by the end of 2010 – about 89,000 more than the 239,000 borrowers who entered repayment in 2008 and defaulted by the end of 2009. More than half of this increase came from students who attended for-profit schools: about 51,000 of the 89,000.

As in previous years, for-profit colleges overall continued to have the highest rates of default. For the FY 2009 cohort, 15.2 percent of borrowers from for-profit colleges defaulted – more than twice the rate at public colleges (7.3 percent) and more than three times the rate of non-profit colleges (4.7 percent). For-profit colleges also experienced the biggest increase between 2008 and 2009 rates – a 31 percent jump compared to 22 percent at public colleges and 18 percent at non-profits.

With a sharp uptick in the number of students defaulting, the new data clearly demonstrate the need for adequate protections for borrowers and accountability for schools. Last week we submitted comments to the Department with suggestions for where regulations could be strengthened on both of these fronts.

Check out our comments to the Department here.

Learn more about cohort default rates on our resource page, and see the new data from the Department on their site.