The Brown & White

Trend reports show that student borrowing of private loans dropped by almost 50 percent last year, while the price of tuition continued to rise, according to reports recently released by College Board.

College Board reported in its "Trends in Student Aid 2009" report that undergraduate students received an average of $10,185 in financial aid. This average included $5,041 in grant aid and $4,585 in federal loans.

Total borrowing increased by $4 billion, or 5 percent, between the 2007-08 and the 2008-09 school years, College Board reported.

Total education borrowing includes federal borrowing and nonfederal loans. Federal borrowing increased by nearly $15 billion for the 2008-09 school year.

In contrast, nonfederal loans declined by about $11 billion.

For the 2008-09 school year, colleges and universities provided 39 percent of undergraduates grant aid while the federal government provided 36 percent, according to the College Board report.

The Pell Grant is a federal program that provides need-based grants.

The grant amounts are dependent on the student's expected family contribution, the cost of the institution's tuition for which the student attends, whether the student attends full-time or part-time and whether the student attends for a full academic year or less.

The average Pell Grant was $2,973 for the 2008-09 school year. College Board reported that 58 percent of Pell Grant funds went to independent undergraduate students, and among dependent Pell Grant recipients, 62 percent went to students with families of annual income below $30,000.

College Board reported that $168.4 billion was the total amount of grants distributed in the 2008-09 school year to undergraduate and graduate students from all sources: Federal Work-Study, federal loans, and federal tax credits and deductions.

According to Sally Cruz, Lehigh's loan coordinator, students who qualified for work-study received $1,700 last year, and the students who qualify this year are receiving as much as $2,200.

"They are trying to compensate for the economy," Cruz said.

Cruz reported that there has been about a 40 percent drop between the numbers of people borrowing this year compared to last year.

"I think that the credit criteria is a lot more difficult for students who are borrowing, based on the legislation, so it is getting a little more difficult for students to apply for loans," Cruz said.

Thirty-five percent of undergraduate students took out federal Stafford loans, according to College Board.

Thirteen percent of undergraduate students received Stafford Loans that were subsidized, while 5 percent of undergraduate students received unsubsidized Stafford Loans and 17 percent received both, according to College Board.

The subsidized Stafford Loan does not accept students based on credit history; there is a fixed interest rate, as low as 5.6 percent, and students have no payments while enrolled in school, according to the Stafford Loan Web site.

The unsubsidized Stafford Loan allows a student to borrow up to $2,000 or more, has a 6.8 percent fixed interest rate, and there are no payments students are required to make while enrolled in school, according to the Stafford Loan Web site.

College Board reported that tuition and fees at private not-for-profit four-year colleges and universities, like Lehigh, averaged $26,273 in the 2009-10 school year. This is 4.4 percent higher than in the 2008-09 school year, or $1,096 more.

For the 2009-10 school year, Lehigh tuition is $38,330, which is a 3.2 percent increase, according to the financial aid Web site.

Published in-state tuitions and fees for public four-year institutions averaged $7,020 for the 2009-10 school year, according to College Board. This is $429 and 6.5 percent higher than the 2008-2009 school year.

The New England region has the highest average for public four-year prices, while the South has the lowest, College Board reported.

The median family income for those with a bachelor's degree or more was reported as $101,099, according to College Board.

Accordingly, the median family income was $49,414 for those with a high school diploma, according to College Board.

College Board's reports were titled "Trends in College Pricing" and "Trends in Student Aid."

They intend to put out another report titled "Education Pays," which will present detailed evidence of the benefits of public and private education. It also examines the disparities in postsecondary participation among different demographic groups.