The Grads Most Likely to Pay Off Student Loans

A good indicator of whether a college grad will pay off his federal student loan debt is which college he attends.

That’s according to data from a recent report on college quality from the Brookings Institution.

The report found that alumni of Notre Dame, Saint John’s University, Vassar, Brigham Young, Grinnell College and Palmer College of Chiropractic nearly always pay their federal student loans. Brookings said:

Every student at Harvey Mudd College who borrowed between 2009 and 2011 was making loan payments three years later, though only 326 borrowed. At Vasser, 99.3 percent of its 923 borrowers were current. Out of non-medical colleges with at least 1,000 borrowers, those attending Notre Dame had the highest repayment rates: Of 4,691 borrowers, just 43 had defaulted within three years.

Although some of the top performers when it comes to student loan repayment are relatively predictable — Notre Dame, Grinnell and Palmer, among others — because of their high graduation rates, high-value curricula and their generous awards of financial support, others are more surprising. For instance, BYU shows up twice on the list – once for its main campus in Idaho and again for its Provo, Utah, campus.

Brookings said:

“Since students at Harvey Mudd, Vassar and Notre Dame come from wealthier families and score higher on standardized tests, we expect them to have relatively high repayment rates — and they do, even higher than expected. In fact, Notre Dame ranks sixth on value-added with respect to repayment. But Brigham Young surpasses expectations by an even larger margin, indicating that the qualities of the school push its graduates to perform in the labor market well beyond their income and academic preparation.”

If you’re drowning in student loan debt and need help, click here for tips on ways to reduce your payments or even wipe out your debt.

Also, check out “13 Ways to Pay Off Student Loans Faster.”

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