19% of families owe on college loans
Nineteen percent of households owed student loan debt in 2010, more than double the share two decades earlier, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Forty percent of households headed by someone younger than age 35 owe such debt, also a record high.The debt burden is heaviest for low-income families.
The average debtor family owes $26,682 in unpaid college loans, up from $23,349 in 2007.
The U.S. Education Department has released two-year and three-year default rates for student loans that came due in 2009 and 2010.
In three years, 13.4 percent of the 2009 cohort defaulted on student loans. Three-year default rates hit 22.7 percent for for-profit college borrowers, 11 percent at public colleges and universities and 7.5 percent at private
