Survey: One-quarter of former students can’t pay back loans

CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP released survey results that showed the majority of former college students wish they had planned better for paying down their student debt.
CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP released survey results that showed the majority of former college students wish they had planned better for paying down their student debt.

PROVIDENCE – A survey by Citizens Financial Group Inc. found that 77 percent of former college students between the ages of 18 and 40 wish they had planned better for paying down their student debt.
Citizens also found that 76 percent are unfamiliar with ways to redesign their student loans, including refinancing, according to its national survey of parents, students and former students – “Informed Index: The Student Loan Landscape.”
The survey also found that 90 percent of former students believe that colleges should play a greater role in helping students understand how to manage their debt, while 91 percent believe high schools should play a greater role.
Twenty-three percent of former students are not currently able to make their student loan payments, according to the Citizens survey.
“Despite the well-documented long-term value of a college degree, too many Americans continue to struggle with paying for the rapidly increasing cost well after they have graduated,” Brendan Coughlin, president of Education and Auto Finance for Citizens Financial Group, said in a statement.
“It’s clear that a key step is having a plan for life after graduation before you enroll in the school of your choice to ensure the cost is appropriate to the career you want. Also revealing, was that most are unaware that they have an opportunity to make their student loan debt more manageable through refinancing – something that 93 percent of those who have refinanced say they recommend to others,” he said.
Citizens, which offers help with student loans via loan refinancing as part of its Citizens Bank and Charter One private student loan offering, last month became one of the first banks in the country to offer private refinancing for federal student loans.
The Informed Index research shows that anxiety about managing student loans begins to rise before students even graduate: nearly three-quarters of current students are concerned that they will not make enough money to pay off their student loans. And while 64 percent of former students say that “going to college has enabled me to do great things in my life,” 47 percent say they may not have gone to college at all if they had known how much the cost of college would impact them.
“This new Informed Index research clearly shows that the need for information continues after school for former students who have seen their economic lives evolve, but not their student loan obligations. With refinancing now broadly available for both federal student loans and private student loans, we are committed to helping our customers better manage this phase of their financial lives,” Coughlin said.
The research, commissioned by Citizens Financial Group, and conducted by Ipsos, was comprised of a 20-minute online survey conducted between Aug. 22 and Sept. 12. The survey explored opinions of 1,562 respondents – 500 current college students age 18–24 with student loans, 544 parents of current college students age 18-24 with student loans, and 518 former students age 18-40 with student loans. The margin of error was about plus or minus 4 percent.
View the survey HERE.

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