College Grads Filing More Bankruptcies

A rather alarming, recently-released survey reveals that college graduates are the fastest-growing group of consumers who have filed for bankruptcy during the last five years.

Articles from The Washington Post and The Atlanta Business Chronicle report that a study by the Institute for Financial Literacy, a financial nonprofit organization, shows that the percentage of debtors with a bachelor’s degree rose from 11.2% in 2006 to 13.6% in 2010. During this same period, the percentage of debtors with a high school diploma, or who did not finish college, declined. The Institute’s executive director, Leslie Linfield, is quoted as saying that the recent recession has shown that “higher education was no guarantee that you weren’t going to be at risk.”

She also stated that, historically, the group most likely to file bankruptcy has been low-income consumers who do not have college degrees; this group still has the largest number of bankruptcy petitioners. She continued, saying that, increasingly, Americans aged 55 and older are filing for bankruptcy protection; those numbers have grown by 25%. Conversely, bankruptcy filings have decreased 31% for those between the ages of 18-34.

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