By Stacey Patton of The Chronicle of Higher Education
As the nation’s student-loan debt surpasses the $1-trillion mark, alarming students, parents, and politicians, few are thinking about the effects it is having on people like Michael J. Trivette, a 28-year-old graduate student in higher education at the University of Georgia.
He has taken out $8,000 in loans for his Ph.D. program in higher education even as he works diligently to finish paying off his undergraduate debt. The debt that Mr. Trivette and other graduate students like him have accumulated to pay for their postbaccalaureate studies accounts for a third of the total student-loan debt in the United States, but much of the national conversation is about undergraduates.
Two-thirds of Ph.D. and other doctoral students and nearly three-quarters of master’s students graduate with loan debt, according to the Council of Graduate Schools. On average, the cumulative debt of master’s-degree students is over $50,000; for doctoral students, it is about $77,000.
And now, the debt burden on graduates is set to grow, beginning July 1. After that date, students pursuing advanced degrees will no longer qualify for the in-school interest subsidy on Stafford loans. That means they will have to start paying the interest on their loans while they are enrolled or let it build up, adding to their debt.
The rules are not changing for subsidized loans borrowed before July 1. The interest rate on graduate loans will remain at 6.8 percent, and there will be no change in the maximum yearly amount that students can borrow.