As an anthropology major in his junior year at the University of Pittsburgh, Patrick Buehler has racked up $60,000 in student loan debt -- and he expects it will be around $80,000 by the time he graduates.
"Anthropology is not really that high paying of a major," said Mr. Buehler, 20, of Carnegie. "I'm hoping I can pay the debt. At points, I've wondered if going to college is still worth it. Will I be able to pay back all those loans?"
For students who graduated from college this spring, the six-month grace period for repaying student loan debt is almost over, which means the first bill will arrive in either November or December.
With the average debt for all four-year college graduates this year at $27,200, according to the nonprofit organization Project on Student Debt, and graduates facing what economists describe as the worst job market since the Great Depression, there is a higher likelihood many of them have not found work or are not earning enough to repay their loans.
It's no wonder the college loan default rate is on the rise.
This year's student loan default rate stands at 8.8 percent, compared to 7 percent last year, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of financial aid websites Finaid.org and Fastweb.com. That translates to about 320,000 borrowers owing $2.4 billion who have made no payments on their student loans since last September.
Even though Pennsylvania has the third highest number of colleges and universities in the nation behind California and New York, the state's student loan default rate is below the national average at 6.6 percent, according to the Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg.
The drumbeat over mounting student debt has led the U.S. Department of Education to suggest a legislative proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives that calls for forgiving student debt for all graduates, even those who are managing to make their payments.
The idea behind the proposal is that wiping out student debt would free up money to spend to boost the economy.