Student Loan Delinquency Rate Is Up

From The LA Times:

A new report raises even more alarms: It's likely that as many as 1 in 4 borrowers was carrying a past-due student loan balance in the third quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday. 

Indeed, the New York Fed put the latest outstanding student loan balance at $870 billion. That's more than the total credit card debt, $693 billion, and car loan debt, $730 billion.

The average balance per borrower: $23,300.

Montana Tech doesn't have to deal with this issue very often.  Even though 55% of our students take out loans to pay for their education, the default rate is around 2-3%. This is not a positive trend for the nation though, through the mortgage crisis we have seen what can happen if too many people have bad debts they cannot pay back. Let's hope this isn't the next bubble about to burst that will take the whole economy down with it!

Photos From The Economic Summit

I had a few photos from the event, I figured I would post them since I wasn't going to do anything else interesting with them. It was a cool event for the time I was there. It's not everyday you get to listen to Warren Buffet and Steve Ballmer talk about Butte and Montana. Check out the Flickr slidehow after the jump.

Economic Summit Shows Great Prospects for Montana’s Economy

Courtney Gordon
  From Ireland to Los Angeles to Japan to China and many other places all over the world, speakers were very enthusiastic about their relationship with Montana.

Outlook on Student Debt

Aaron Briggs

  The United States have managed to reach another shocking economic milestone this year. The total amount of student debt has surpassed the total amount of credit card debt for Americans. Credit card debt dropped from $975 billion to $826 billion, meanwhile student debt has risen steadily to $829 billion.