New graduates are leaving college with more debt, but their starting salaries at new jobs are not keeping pace with their debt, a new study by the Project on Student Debt indicates.
The study, “Student Debt and the Class of 2006,” found that the nation’s average student loan debt for seniors graduating from four-year institutions increased by eight percent from 2005 to 2006, while the starting salary for recent college graduates rose only four percent.
The average debt of students in the graduating class of 2006 was about $20,000.
“It puts families in a bane because they know that a college education is a ticket to being part of the middle class, but large debt spells trouble,” says Robert Shireman, executive director of the Project on Student Debt. “We need to make college available by making Pell grants, grant aids and helping people who have taken loans.”
The report includes a list of colleges and universities that have high and low debts. Graduates from institutions in Washington, D.C. and New Hampshire face the highest debt levels, $27,757 and $24,800, respectively. Hawaii graduates had the lowest average debt at $11,758.
Included in the list of high-debt institutions is historically Black Alabama State University and Bethune-Cookman University in Florida.
Devon Quash, an alumnus of Bethune-Cookman, is an example of the trend revealed in the study.
