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Students With Less Than $5,000 In College Loan Debt Most Likely Group To Default
Resume![People walk on the Columbia University campus on July 1, 2013 in New York City. An interest rate hike kicks in today for student loans, an increase for 7 million students. Congress left town at the end of last week failing to prevent rates on new Stafford student loans increasing from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)](https://wordpress.wbur.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/0725_student-loans-debt-getty-1000x683.jpg)
The average student debt burden in the U.S. is about $30,000. But Derek Thompson of The Atlantic writes that the biggest default threat is on smaller loans.
A new White House report found that loans of less than $10,000 accounted for nearly two-thirds of all defaults in 2011. Fewer than one in six undergraduate borrowers with $5,000 in initial debt completed college, a lower rate than higher borrowers.
Here & Now's Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with Thompson about the problems facing students who borrow smaller amounts.
Guest
Derek Thompson, senior editor at The Atlantic. He tweets @DKThomp.
This segment aired on July 25, 2016.