With graduates defaulting on their loans at sky-high rates, the vast majority of America’s 32 tribal colleges have stopped their students from borrowing.

…“We completely disagree with that idea that students are worse off without [access to] federal loans,” Billy said. “Particularly when you look at the demographics of our students — students who have lived with generational poverty, unemployment, who have no experience with credit — that’s a recipe for disaster when it comes to loans. Tribal colleges will do everything they can to make their students graduate debt-free.

Tribal colleges, like community colleges, are relatively inexpensive — around $6,000 a year, low enough that a $5,750 annual Pell Grant will cover most of the cost of tuition. But community college students sometimes borrow money to help pay for living costs and expenses like textbooks. That option isn’t available for tribal college students.

Those students often face staggering obstacles that make them more less likely to repay student debt, Billy said. Eighty-three percent of them are reliant on Pell Grants, which are only given to low-income students, compared to just 40% of college students nationally. Many tribal college students have little to no experience with borrowing money or credit. They’re also mostly first-generation college students.

…Leander “Russ” McDonald, the president of United Tribes Tech, said the school’s loan default rate has been driven up by the fact that so many of its students come from rural areas, especially reservations. They return home after graduation to some of the country’s most economically depressed places, hoping to help their communities but finding that even with their degrees, there aren’t enough jobs to go around.

Native American Colleges Have Abandoned The Student Loan System – BuzzFeed News

Hmmmm.

Student loans seem more and more like a lifetime sentence these days, so -as long the colleges are filling in the gaps in other ways- this doesn’t seem like a bad thing at all.