Danny Lloyd just finished his first semester at the University of South Carolina, but the Columbia native already knows he will get more than a mechanical engineering degree when he graduates.
Lloyd expects to have roughly $20,000 in tuition debt — a prospect that provides him a strong incentive to find work in the state’s growing aerospace industry: “It’s going to weigh over my head so I better get a good job so I can pay this back.”
The average debt for S.C. college graduates was $27,416 in 2012, according to an recent analysis of federal data compiled for the Institute for College Access & Success, a California-based research group.
That is almost $2,000 less than the national average. Still, some of the other tuition-debt data is sobering for S.C. students seeking diplomas.
• Since 2008, the college debt of S.C. graduates has grown at a faster pace than the national average. Part of the reason? South Carolina has the most expensive average tuition for public colleges in the Southeast and ranked among the 10 costliest in the nation, according to a survey of 2011-12 data by the U.S. Department of Education.
• Debt at private four-year S.C. schools was just $1,600 higher than at public colleges. But a larger chunk of private school graduates, 66 percent, left with debt than public college students, 53 percent, the institute found.
• The typical Palmetto State grad carried $6,300 more in debt after getting a diploma last year than their 2008 counterparts. Debt is growing faster than the rate of inflation because tuition has increased at a faster pace than the average cost of all goods and services.
• More than half of S.C. graduates — 55 percent — had debt after getting their diploma. But that’s below the national average of 71 percent.
• Loan default rates grew at most S.C. schools between 2010 and 2011, according to an analysis of federal data Institute for College Access & Success.
S.C. schools say they work to educate students about debt while they are on campus. Talk about tuition loans goes along with information about credit cards at student orientations.