As national student debt continues to climb, more than 10% of new borrowers regularly default as they leave post-secondary education. More than 60% of those in default have small loans of less than $10,000. In recent years, however, there’s been a surge in the number of students utilizing big loans to finance their education, with 17% leaving school with more than $50,000 of federal student loan debt. With this growth, scholars are identifying new types of big borrowers: lower-income adults and parents.
