Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Graduate Schools

"The signs are hard to miss in downtown San Francisco: two stylized A's inside a red circle, symbolizing the Academy of Art University. The for-profit school occupies more than 40 buildings throughout the city and has made its family owners very rich.

Where does the Academy of Art’s money come from? About $100 million per year arrives as tuition and fees financed by federal student loans. The full scope of the borrowing was revealed May 21, when, for the first time, the Department of Education released information about how much debt students are taking on to earn degrees from various academic programs at American colleges and universities.

The data shows one sector in particular with outsize debt: graduate school. And while the Academy of Art fosters unusually high burdens, many public universities and nonprofit schools have also gotten into the debt-fueled graduate school business.

In releasing the college loan data, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos described it as part of President Trump’s executive order to address the student debt crisis. Access to the loan amounts, she said, will allow students to make informed decisions about choosing colleges. 

At the same time, the department is preparing to uproot the Obama administration’s approach to the debt crisis, by repealing regulations that cut college programs out of the federal financial aid system if students don’t earn enough money to pay their loans back."