Collegiate Times

More than half of all graduating seniors left their Virginia colleges with nearly $20,000 of debt last year, a new study says.

The Project on Student Debt, a branch of the non-profit, California-based Institute for College Access & Success, released its fourth annual report on the amount of debt that college students graduate with. “Student Debt and the Class of 2008” ranked Virginia the 31st most expensive state in the country.

Edie Irons, spokesman for the IC&S, said that although the report is important for students and college administrators, the data are not 100 percent accurate because colleges volunteer to participate. This year, 922 colleges chose to send data.

Barry Simmons, director of the office of university scholarships and financial aid at Virginia Tech, also heavily emphasized that the numbers may have been inaccurate.

“Not all colleges have reported as thoroughly as possible,” he said.

Although only about 50 percent of Tech’s 2008 graduates faced debts, their average costs were the highest among students graduating from Virginia public four-year colleges, at around $22,000.

All data were reported by the colleges themselves and were not subject to outside review before inclusion in the study. The study also states that some colleges may not have been aware of exact totals of student debts, or of loans not reported to the college.
According to the report, of public four-year institutions in Virginia, Radford University clocked in with the highest proportion of graduates in debt — nearly 90 percent of its 2008 graduates owed debts of almost $20,000 each.

Radford spokesman Jeff Douglas said that many students at Radford face debts because they are “stuck in the middle.”

“They are too affluent to qualify for Pell Grants, but they can’t cover all of their costs,” Douglas said.

Douglas said that Radford is “very sensitive to the rising costs.”

“We want to help students as much as possible,” he said.

He suggested that a lack of job availability in the New River Valley area might have compounded some students’ financial difficulties.

“I don’t know if we could try any harder to help students,” Douglas said.

Simmons also said that students should be cautious against taking loans for the sake of borrowing.

“If you’re having to seek student loans, buy your jeans at Kmart, not at Saks Fifth Avenue,” he said. “More and more people are depending on student loans to go to school, then choosing to spend their money on other things.”

The IC&S report suggested several changes to the current data reporting system that it feels would ultimately help students. These suggestions include federally mandated debt statistics collection as well as certification for private student loans.

Irons suggested that IC&S hopes that policies can be enacted or changed once more data are available that will help lower the overall cost of student debts.