A federal student loan is considered to be in default if payment is late by 270 days, or roughly nine months. Private student loan default varies by lender, but a payment that is three to four months late will typically trigger default.
The consequences are steep for either.
Federal or private student loan default will damage your credit score, while also possibly leading to the garnishment of your tax refund, Social Security benefits, or wages. In the most severe instances, you may have to deal with a debt collector, lawsuit, or even the U.S. Marshals if you continually ignore the issue.
And with a $1.67 trillion national student loan debt crisis that has the average borrower owing $29,076 apiece, student loan default has emerged as a macro-economic concern that could lead to a generation of young Americans in financial duress that prevents them from buying homes and starting families.
According to The Brookings Institute, a “looming student loan default crisis” could see 40% of student loan borrowers in default by 2023.
To capture the prevalence of student loan default in the U.S., LendEDU has analyzed just-released data from the Department of Education (ED) that allows us to tell you the respective student loan default rates at 4,398 colleges and universities around the country, in addition to each state’s collective default rate, and also default rates at specific school-types like HBCUs.
Surprisingly, the national student loan default rate dropped to 9.70% compared to our report last year when it was 10.10%.
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Table of Contents
- Default Rates by State
- Default Rates by School-Type
- Default Rates by School
- Schools in Jeopardy of Losing Federal Funding
- Key Findings
- How to Avoid Student Loan Default
- Methodology
Student Loan Default Rates by State, School-Type, & School
All data in the tables found below derives from the Department of Education (ED). The data reflects default rates for the 2017 fiscal year and was released by the ED on September 30, 2020.
For schools that had over 30 borrowers enter repayment in the 2017 fiscal year, the ED found the default rate by taking the sum of borrowers that entered repayment in 2017 and defaulted in 2017, 2018, or 2019 and divided that sum by the number of borrowers who entered repayment in 2017.
For schools that had less than 30 borrowers enter repayment in the 2017 fiscal year, the ED found the default rate by summing together the number of borrowers who entered repayment in 2015, 2016, or 2017 and defaulted and divided that figure by the number of borrowers who entered repayment in 2015, 2016, or 2017.
State and school-type figures were calculated by combining the respective default data for all schools that fit specific state or school-type criteria. To calculate year-over-year changes from last year’s default data, we used the updated default data from the ED’s report this year for the 2016 fiscal year rather than the data found in our report last year.
For reference, LendEDU removed all schools from Canada, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico to complete our school-by-school & state analysis this year. Private, public, and proprietary (for-profit) institutions were all included in this report and school offerings ranged from non-degree one year to master’s or doctor’s degree.
The LendEDU team has worked diligently to compile this data and organize it in a user-friendly manner. If you have questions about this report, or would like a raw file of the data, please email me at [email protected].
By State
By School-Type (Private, Public, & Proprietary)
By School-Type (HBCUs, Hispanic Colleges, Native American Colleges, & Ethnically Not Reported Colleges)
By School
To see how a school ranked within only its state, either sort the table on the “State” column or type your desired state into the search bar.
Schools in Jeopardy of Losing Federal Funding Due to Default Rates
The following schools are subject to lose eligibility for the Federal Direct Loan Program and/or the Federal Pell Grant Program due to three straight years with default rates above 30%.
The following schools are subject to lose eligibility for the Direct Loan Program due to default rates above 40% for the 2017 fiscal year.
Key Findings
- The national student loan default rate for the 2017 fiscal year was 9.70%, which is a decrease of .40 percentage points from when the student loan default rate was 10.10% for the 2016 fiscal year.
- Not surprisingly, for-profit institutions had the highest collective student loan default rate (14.70%), followed by public institutions (9.30%), and private institutions (6.70%).
- Also not surprisingly, all seven schools that are subject to lose eligibility for the Direct Loan Program due to default rates above 40% for the 2017 fiscal year are for-profit institutions.
- Meanwhile, seven of the ten schools that are subject to lose eligibility for the Federal Direct Loan Program and/or the Federal Pell Grant Program due to three straight years with default rates above 30% are for-profit institutions.
- When it came to ethnic school-types, Native American Colleges had the highest student loan default rate (19.73%), followed by HBCUs (16.65%), Ethnically Not Reported Colleges (9.18%), and Hispanic Colleges (8.68%).
- Four-year institutions at private institutions, public institutions, and for-profit institutions had the lowest collective student loan default rates compared to their “less than two years” and “two to three-year” counterparts.
- Going state-by-state, Massachusetts had the lowest student loan default rate (5.83%), followed by Vermont (6.19%), North Dakota (6.30%), California (6.40%), and Utah (6.60%).
- On the other hand, Mississippi had the highest student loan default rate (15.19%) and was closely followed by Oklahoma (15.15%), Louisiana (14.91%), New Mexico (13.66%), and West Virginia (12.96%).
- Similar to last year, states in the Northeast and Midwest tended to have lower student loan default rates, while states in the South typically had the highest student loan default rates.
How to Avoid Student Loan Default
Unfortunately, student loan default has become a common issue due to the rising cost of college, and many borrowers may think student loan default is unavoidable.
But first, those borrowers should try a few things in an effort to avoid student loan default.
Contact Your Student Loan Servicer or Lender
If you have federal student loans and are worried about defaulting on your loans, you should first contact your federal student loan servicer to explain your situation in the hopes that you reach an agreement to avoid student loan default.
If you have private student loans, you should similarly reach out to your private student loan lender to see if a compromise can be struck before student loan default comes into play.
With either, it’s possible you may get placed in temporary forbearance or have your monthly minimum payments reduced to make them more manageable so it’s certainly worth reaching out to your student loan provider first.
Research Income-Driven Repayment Plans
If you think student loan default is around the corner, it’s also a good idea to consider an income-driven repayment plan to make your monthly student loan payments more affordable.
An income-driven repayment plan applies to federal student loan repayment and is meant to ease your repayment burden by capping your monthly minimum payment so that it fits within your budget.
Consider Refinancing Your Student Loans
Finally, you could look into refinancing your student loans as a possible option to avoid student loan default because this route could potentially lower your student loan interest rate and consolidate your various student loans into a single, manageable monthly payment.
If refinancing your student loans leads to a lower student loan interest rate, your monthly payments likely won’t be as much and that could be the difference between triggering student loan default or avoiding it.
Methodology
All data in this report derives from a report published by the Department of Education (ED) on September 30, 2020. The data reflects default rates for the 2017 fiscal year, the most recent, fully-analyzed year available from the ED.
For schools that had over 30 borrowers enter repayment in the 2017 fiscal year, the ED found the default rate by taking the sum of borrowers that entered repayment in 2017 and defaulted in 2017, 2018, or 2019 and divided that sum by the number of borrowers who entered repayment in 2017.
For schools that had less than 30 borrowers enter repayment in the 2017 fiscal year, the ED found the default rate by summing together the number of borrowers who entered repayment in 2015, 2016, or 2017 and defaulted and divided that figure by the number of borrowers who entered repayment in 2015, 2016, or 2017.
For the state table, second school-type table, and the complete school table, LendEDU filtered out schools that were located in Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Canada. The first school-type table and the last two tables pertaining to federal funding were reported as they were published by the ED. The first school-type table includes 6,060 total institutions that produced a collective default rate of 9.70%.
State and school-type figures were calculated by combining the respective default data for all schools that fit specific state or school-type criteria. To calculate year-over-year changes from last year’s default data, LendEDU used the updated default data from the ED’s report this year for the 2016 fiscal year rather than the data found in our report last year.
Private, public, and proprietary (for-profit) institutions were all included in this report. Schools included ranged from offering the following degree programs: associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, first professional degree, graduate/professional degree, master’s or doctor’s degree, non-degree, non-degree one year, non-degree two years, non-degree three plus years, and two-year transfer.
To see an in-depth methodology from the Department of Education on the data, click here.
See more of LendEDU’s Research