Barking Up the Wrong Tree with the Student Debt Crisis

Is the student loan problem the same as the student loan default problem? The data show that students who default on their loans within a few years after leaving school tend to have much lower debt levels. That means our one-size-fits-all policies toward student borrowers won't do much for those most in crisis -- the ones who enter default. Check out my latest post in The Hill here:

Though low-balance borrowers make up 52 percent of those with debt, they accounted for 84 percent of those in default. In fact, more than half of the low-debt defaulters borrowed less than $5,000 in federal student loans. Fewer than 5 percent of students had as much debt as the typical bachelor's degree-completer with loans in the survey.