When It Comes To Federal Student Loans, Florida Is A Low-Debt State
professional job and the financial security that comes with it. The promises of college as the path to a middle-class lifestyle ring increasingly empty. Many first-generation college students are in a worse financial position than their parents, due to the skyrocketing cost of tuition and the labyrinthine student loan repayment system. Many former students find that their best hope is to enter an income-driven repayment plan, pay a percentage of their income for 25 years, and then have the remaining loan balance forgiven. Income-driven loan forgiveness is not a perfect solution, though. By the time you get your loans forgiveness, you are well into middle-age and living paycheck to paycheck, with next to nothing to save for retirement. If you are struggling with student debt, it is of little consolation that recent college graduates in most other states have it even worse. It is of somewhat more consolation, however, that a Miami debt lawyer can help you tackle your debt, even if federal student loans make up a large portion of it.
Florida Has the Third Lowest Average Federal Student Loan Balance for the Class of 2020
As if the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t give the class of 2020 enough worries, they also graduated with a significant debt burden. The Institute for College Access and Success recently published a report on the student loan balances carried by graduates who earned bachelor’s degrees in 2020. The report did not give a state-by-state breakdown of what percentage of students graduated debt-free in each state; the percentage of graduates with federal student debt upon graduation ranged from 39 percent to 79 percent; region seemed to have little bearing on the percentage of debt-free graduates. Of students who owed money on federal student loans, however, the ten states where students, on average, owed the most, are all in the Northeast corridor, where college, and other aspects of life, are the most expensive. The ten states with the lowest average federal loan balances included the sunniest states, as well as some deep red landlocked states west of the Mississippi River. In Florida, the average federal student loan balance for the class of 2020 was $24,454; only Hawaii and Idaho had lower average balances.
The percentage of students who graduate owing money on private student loans is lower, accounting for less than a quarter of graduates. Again, the highest private loan balances were concentrated in Northeastern states and the lowest loan balances in the West; Florida was neither in the top ten nor the bottom ten for private student loan balances.
Don’t Wait to Tackle Your Student Loan Debt
The best way to stop student loan debt from following you around until retirement is to strategize about your total debt burden, education-related and otherwise, starting now, and a debt lawyer can help you develop a comprehensive debt repayment strategy. Contact Nowack & Olson, PLLC in Miami, Florida to discuss your case.
