<p>Time says, based on US News data, that University of North Dakota is #1 in student debt, with average debt of $45,369 among the 83% of 2010 graduating students with debt.</p>
<p>Seems like this means that many students are borrowing most of their cost of attendance, which is relatively low by university standards:</p>
<p>ND resident: $13,684/year => $54,736 over four years
MN resident: $14,034/year => $56,136 over four years
special agreements: $16,510/year => $66,040 over four years
all others: $23,123/year => $92,492 over four years</p>
<p>As a UND alum, this shocked me. Fiscally, the state is in good shape so I don’t know why more parents haven’t been saving up for their kids’ education. I’m going back for homecoming in two weeks and will try to find some answers.</p>
<p>To me this looks like most of the students come from poor families. Maybe they are “land rich but cash poor?” Folks may be working and able to make ends meet, but don’t have anything extra and little/no savings to pay for college? Sort of surprising, though–it seems that the students should be able to contribute a little more from part-time jobs during the school year/summer work.</p>
<p>Could be that, even with an inexpensive school, if non-loan aid is limited and most of the students come from poor families, debt could be high.</p>
<p>But one thing interesting is that UND’s financial aid estimator (linked from the above page) estimated $6,600 per year of “other” costs beyond the tuition, books and supplies, and room and board, so $13,684/year for ND residents increases to $20,284/year. That seems like a lot of “other” costs for a presumably low cost of living area.</p>
<p>I would bet it is all the aviation students - while the basic tuition is definitely reasonable, the added cost for all the flight courses/flight hours adds up to tens of thousands of additional $$$$.</p>
<p>^
I agree. I have a friend whose boyfriend is in the aviation program at UND, and she says his “extra” aviation-related costs are insanely high.</p>
<p>“Aviation” was the reason I was given by the VP of UND’s student body, but he hadn’t even heard that UND had the most debt. I still don’t completely buy that explanation, as less than 10% of the student body is majoring in aviation. I think all the reasons listed above could be true.</p>
<p>Hmmm . . . Something’s not right here. The US News online edition reports that for the 2010 graduating class, the University of North Dakota’s average student debt at graduation was $31,959 — not $45,369. The $31,959 figure would put UND nowhere near the top 10.</p>
<p>Time’s figures for the other “10 worst” seem to correspond exactly with the figures reported in the US News online edition. Could this be just a horrendous typo/fact-check fail on Time’s part?</p>
<p>I just called UND’s financial aid office. She apologized for the confusion. They are trying to come up with the real number and believes it will be much closer to $30,000, but are not ready to issue an official statement.</p>
<p>UND issued a corrected version of its 2010-2011 Common Data Set some time ago that says the figure for the class of 2010 was $31,384—very close to the $31,959 figure reported in the US News online edition, which may have come from an earlier version of the 2010-2011 CDS. No idea where Time got the $45,369 figure. Sounds like a case of extremely shoddy journalism to me, but considering the source I’m not exactly surprised.</p>
<p>It’s a little bizarre, though. The Time story says it’s just reporting on the US News 2012 ranking of the schools with the highest debt for the 2010 graduating class. But if you go to the US News 2012 online edition, it doesn’t have UND #1; it has UND #30, with an average of $31,959–the same figure reported in US News’ school profile for UND.</p>
<p>And I guess I dont understand how UND is to blame for this error. What’s reported in US News is what’s reported in US News; Time’s list claimed to be reproducing that list, and clearly it didn’t. What, UND called up Time and said, “No, wait, we’re #1”? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Something is out of wack in North Dakota. North Dakota is one of the few states operating with a budget surplus–there’s an oil boom dumping lots of tax revenue into the state’s purse–resident students at their state universities should be getting some relief from the state with college expenses.</p>
<p>Gahdafi didn’t let Libya’s people in on much of the oil wealth in Libya and look what it got him.</p>
<p>US News had the original figure, but have now made the correction. Time used the original figure. I don’t see why this is so hard to understand. A little chip on your shoulder regarding Time magazine, don’t you think? If you’d like to call UND for more clarification, I’m sure they’d be happy to talk to you about it. </p>
<p>The state is doing well, so even #30 surprises me. It’s still a good school at a great price.</p>