Utah ranks best in US for student debt
Aug 2, 2024, 7:31 AM
People walk through the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Utah has the lowest average student debt, and also has the lowest proportion of students with debt, which is less than half of that in South Dakota, the state with the highest proportion of indebted students. (Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)
(Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Student debt is mounting pressure on millions of Americans’ wallets. In 2024, nearly 43 million college graduates across the country, or 13% of the population, had “outstanding federal student loan debt,” Nerdwallet reported. That being said, younger generations have chosen to opt out of higher education.
One-third of participants in a 2024 Deloitte Global survey said they chose not to pursue college. Why?
“The leading reasons were financial constraints (32% of Gen Zs and 40% of millennials); family or personal circumstances (26% of Gen Zs and 34% of millennials); and seeking career paths that don’t require higher education degrees, such as vocational training, apprenticeships, or other programs that allow them to gain skills outside of university (24% of Gen Zs and 18% of millennials).”
The more than $1.7 trillion dollars in collective federal and private student loan debt accounts for a large amount of the country’s new record-high debt of $35 trillion.
“College keeps getting progressively more expensive, and so does borrowing money to attend. Federal student loan interest rates are rising to a 12-year high for the upcoming academic year, so it’s important to plan carefully when borrowing,” WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe said in a new report on state-by-state student loan debt comparisons.
Read the full story and more from Emma Pitts on deseret.com.
