alt Hacker NewsIsn't most debt incurred by graduate students, especially those in med or law schools? Surely 4 years of higher education should be enough for someone to figure out basic maths?
Replies
datavirtue • 01/25/2025
My mom has a master's degree and couldn't plan her finances or retirement if her life depended on it.
Maybe, maybe not? This is hard to find via search, possibly due to graduate being inside the search term undergraduate. :)
This shows the average total owed by graduate students is much higher than undergraduates, about 3x. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/avera... So just spitballing here, if there are more than 3x undergraduates than graduate students, and the same number have loans, the undergraduate debt is higher overall.
But then there's this showing the median being closer to only 2x different https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-abo...
The long rise of for profit undergraduate institutions until quite recently says it was extremely profitable to get students into debt for questionable education value, it's almost like payday loan shops, just preying on different segment of population.
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2022/01/how-universi...
I don't think traditional public or private four year universities are blameless, either, raising tuition to match this endlessly rising loans guaranteed by Federal government with spiraling administrative system costs.
Even though the cost is high I thought in the USA the number of med school students is restricted to a very small number.