Student Debt Accumulation: A Demographic Profile of System-Wide Student Borrowing Trends between 2016-2020

Project Background

This project focuses on college affordability and how students and their families who attend NC system schools pay for college. We intend to provide a complete accounting student debt accumulation system-wide among undergraduate and graduate students enrolled since 2015.

While there are several available reports on the state of student loan debt borrowers in North Carolina, these reports are based on national credit panel data, which lacks many key variables we know are important for understanding the student debt landscape. These variables include race and ethnicity, institutions attended, and the amount originally borrowed. These prior analyses also do not distinguish borrowers who attended schools within NC to those who attended out-of-state school.

Aims/Goals

To address the weaknesses of existing work, our project aims to track the proportion of financial aid packages that are loan-based while enrolled in a system school. We also aim to examine trends over time and by institution, program, and student level (undergraduate, graduate, professional). Our analyses will include a characterization of debt profiles (e.g., amount in dollars, distribution of debt across different sources (e.g., state vs. federal vs. institutional). Finally, we will also explore variation in those specific measures across: (a) student subgroups defined by race, ethnicity, and gender; and (b) institutional subgroups such as HBCUS, MSIs, etc., comparing local student debt trends to national data.

Potential Outcomes/Impact

• Provide a thorough accounting of student debt accumulation system-wide among students enrolled since 2015.
• Compare system trends to national data

People

• Fenaba Addo
• Steve Hemelt
• Isai Garcia-Baza

Publications

Updates coming soon