Texas schools rank low in costs but average in student debt on new college scorecards released by the Department of Education last night.
During his State of the Union address last night, President Barack Obama announced an online college scorecard that aims to provide information about college affordability for students.
"My administration will release a new college scorecard that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria: where you can get the most bang for your educational buck," Obama said.
Shortly following the address, the Obama administration released the scorecard online as promised. The scorecard outlines the costs, graduation rates, loan default rates and median borrowing figures of each college. Costs, graduation rates and median borrowings are displayed graphically on a scale ranging from low to high
The Department of Education is currently working to get more information regarding employment of individual college graduates.
The majority of Texas colleges were scored as cheaper compared to other colleges in the nation. But in terms of the amount of federal loans student took out during college, Texas was about on average.
The University of Texas at Austin is one of the few Texas colleges to receive a "medium" score for its costs and a "high" score for its median borrowing. Texas A&M scored "low" for its costs and "medium" for its median borrowing. Texas Sate received the same scores as A&M, but while its costs is slightly lower than A&M, its median borrowing was slightly higher.
UT-Austin, Texas A&M and Texas State all had less than 10 percent of its graduates default on federal loans. UT-Austin and Texas A&M scored "high" in terms of graduation rates. Texas State scored "medium" in its graduation rates.