This morning, personal finance website WalletHub released a study that said Kentucky ranks seventh-highest (in this case, seventh-worst) in the nation for “indebtedness and earning opportunities” for college students and graduates.
The study is timely — earlier today, President Biden announced a plan to help millions of low- and middle-income Americans who owe student debt. Under the president’s plan, The Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients.
According to the WalletHub study, “2022’s States with the Most and Least Student Debt,” WalletHub compared all 50 states and Washington, D.C., “based on 11 key measures of indebtedness and earning opportunities. Our data set ranges from average student debt to unemployment rate among the population aged 25 to 34 to share of students with past-due loan balances.”
The six states that ranked higher than Kentucky were, in order, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Mississippi and Delaware.
Here’s how Kentucky ranked in specific categories:
- 29th — Average Student Debt
- 11th — Proportion of Students with Debt
- 5th — Student Debt as Percentage of Income (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
- 25th — Unemployment Rate of Population Aged 25 to 34
- 5th — Percent of Student Loans Past Due or in Default
- 9th — Availability of Student Jobs
- 22nd — Availability of Paid Internships
- 27th — Grant Growth
You can read the full study and learn about the methodology for creating it at this link.
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