College graduates represent the fastest growing demographic of consumers who have filed for bankruptcy over the past five years, according to a new report out Tuesday.Wait, really? Our high school guidance counselors always told us that a college degree guaranteed financial success down the road.
Not necessarily so, according to the survey by the Institute for Financial Literacy, which found that wealthier, more educated households are driving the recent spike in bankruptcy filings.
The percentage of debtors with bachelor’s degrees rose from 11.2 percent to 13.6 percent between 2006 and 2010, and debtors with graduate degrees increased from 4.9 percent to 6.7 percent. In the same span, there was a decline in the percentage of bankruptcy filers who didn’t finish college, though they still accounted for about a third of all bankruptcies, the Post reports.“We’re told that if you do go and get advanced education, you’re going to be almost guaranteed this economic success,” Leslie Linfield, the group’s executive director, told the Washington Post, which got an early look at the report. Linfield added that the recession proved that “higher education was no guarantee that you weren’t going to be at risk.”
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