When Adrienne Reyes graduated from U. Toledo two years ago, she was more than $23,000 in debt.
Her degree may be in pharmaceutical sciences, an otherwise lucrative degree, but Reyes found she needed to attend graduate school in order to achieve her career goals.
Like many students, the hole made by her undergraduate debt has become deeper as she now needs to pay for her graduate studies in public health.
Today, she estimates she owes over $50,000 in government loans.
“I have a plan to pay all of this back, but it definitely hasn’t escaped my mind,” Reyes said.
The amount of student borrowing and debt accumulation after graduating is on the rise.
Today, two-thirds of college students borrow for college with the national average of post-graduate debt amounting to $23,186 according to the government’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, compared to $13,172 in 1991.
The average student debt at UT is below the national average at $19,351.
Assistant Director of Loans and Financial Aid at UT, Sherri Jiannuzzi, has seen an increase in the amount of money students have been borrowing, similar to the national trend.
Experts such as Deputy Undersecretary of the U.S Education Department Robert Shireman blame the economy for the increase in student borrowing and subsequent debt.
“The sharp growth is definitely above expectations,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “The eye-opening increase in borrowing is largely due to the dire economic environment, which is causing more people to seek federal loans.”
UT Debt Management Advisor Amy Burns notes that while student borrowing is increasing, students are generally more alert of the rise in student debt.
“The more it’s in the news, the more students are aware of it,” Burns said. “People are aware that ‘this is a loan, I’m going to have to pay it back.'”
Jiannuzzi points to the current economic situation for making students “smarter” about taking out loans.
“We are finding more students are really asking ‘do I need to borrow all of this,'” she said.
Sean Battista, a fourth year student in the PharmD program, estimates his total debt by the time he graduates to reach $150,000.
“It concerns me how much debt I have, and will have, by the time I graduate, but it’s a necessary evil, I couldn’t have gone through college without taking all of these loans,” he said.
Battista has two years left to complete his degree and isn’t worried about finding a job as a pharmacist and eventually paying back his loans.
Degrees in health care such as pharmacy, medicine, engineering and technical work are expected to give students an easier time to pay off their debt, according to Jiannuzzi, because of good job potential, higher income and forgiveness programs.
An income-based repayment option began in July in order to give those with low salaries and larger households more time to pay back their loans.
A student using this payment plan is expected to pay back their loans within 20 to 25 years after graduating, in contrast to standard repayment plans that take an average of 10 years.
Loan consolidation programs are also offered that give students the ability to consolidate all their debt into one payment. According to Jiannuzzi, this is so students are not making payments to multiple servicers and have a longer time to pay back their loans.
Forgiveness options are available to students in teaching, medicine, and law careers that require them to enter public service occupations for up to 10 years. A student is required to make 120 loan payments, and the remaining balance will be “forgiven,” or paid off.
Burns works to prepare students when they graduate and enter repayment by sending them exit counseling consultation.
She said the most important thing for students to remember is the classic warning of only borrow what you need.
“If you don’t need it, don’t take the loan money that is offered to you and look at other options to cover it through scholarships or through working,” Burns said.