New reports show an increase in deferred loans among recent college graduates

On January 30, TransUnion, a Chicago-based consumer analytics group, released a report revealing that more than 50 percent of student loan accounts nationwide are in deferred status going into 2013. The study goes on to show that deferred loans represent 43.5 percent of all student loan balances, which have rose by more than 75 percent since 2007.

According to the source, the average student loan debt per borrower increased 30 percent to $23,829 over the past five years as the cost of paying for college failed to coincide with overall economic conditions.

The biggest factor contributing to this is that while colleges get more expensive, graduates are having a harder time getting jobs that can supplement their costly debt burdens. 

After analyzing government data, TransUnion found that more than half of college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed – the highest rate in nearly 11 years, even predating the onset of the recent Great Recession.

“With the economy either in recession or slowly coming out of it during the study period, we had expected that student loan balances might increase as consumers frustrated with the job market went back to school to work toward a different career path. However, the rate of growth we observed was truly eye-opening,” Ezra Becker, vice president of research and consulting in TransUnion’s financial services business unit, said in a press release.

The research also found that there was a huge disparity between the balances of federal student loans and those of private offerings. While government-backed loans, which account for the majority of loan packages, saw their balance increase by 97 percent since 2007, private loans had their debt burdens go up by only 4 percent over the same period.

Students going into college should seek out scholarship assistance and financial aid counseling to help lower the debt burden they could potentially face after graduation.