President George Hanbury responded to criticism from two online publications regarding NSU’s graduate student debt.
The first article, “As Graduate-Student Debt Booms, Just a Few Colleges are Largely Responsible,” was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, an online source of news, information and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators. BuzzFeed, a social news and entertainment company, immediately took notice of this article and published one of their own, “How a College You’ve Never Heard of Became a Grad School Giant.” Both articles were largely focused on NSU.
Hanbury addressed how student loan debt is of great concern to him. He explained that because of its young age, NSU is seeking to build its endowment and expand research to offset rising tuition costs like older research universities have been able to do so successfully in the past.
The BuzzFeed article states, “NSU doesn’t have much of a name outside of southern Florida…but it made national news last month for a staggering statistic: last year, graduate students there took out more than half of a billion dollars in student loans, more than almost any other school in America.”
Hanbury responded that the information presented in the article is misleading.
“On a per student loan basis, we have made an examination of the average loan amount, versus per institution, revealing that there are more than 170 colleges and universities with higher average unsubsidized loan amounts per student and more than 180 with higher grad plus loans per student than NSU,” said Hanbury.
NSU’s Director of University Relations Brandon Hensler said the topic of graduate student debt has been widely talked and written about for several years now. The federal government recently released a College Scorecard, where a university’s information can be found. NSU’s “scorecard” shows that NSU graduates earn more income after graduation than the average college or university graduate.
“NSU and its graduates have a very positive story to tell. The default rate for NSU graduates is far below the national average for both private/not-for-profit as well as state universities,” Hensler said. “While in a list of schools with graduate debt NSU appears to be high, readers should keep in mind that NSU is 80% graduate/professional and so it is logical that the graduate debt level would be higher than schools with a more typical undergraduate-graduate ratio.”
Throughout Hanbury’s letter, he continually took pride in NSU by reiterating the fact that NSU is the largest private, selective research university in Florida, the second largest in the Southeastern United States and the tenth largest in the nation.
“Our value proposition is outstanding,” he said.
NSU’s specialties align with broader trends in American education: Growth in graduate enrollment, increasing demand from employers for graduate degrees on top of bachelor’s, growth in college attainment among black and Latino students, a surge in demand for healthcare workers and a lifting of federal caps on graduate student borrowing.
Hensler said NSU awards more graduate degrees to Hispanic students than any other institution in the country, according to the university. 24 percent of its graduate students are Latino, and 24 percent are black. Their average age is around 33.
“The proof for NSU is indeed in the low default rate statistic, but also in the stories that our graduates tell. They are physicians, dentists, lawyers, college and university presidents, school system superintendents, government officials, chief officers of national companies and one is the Vice President of a country; and the list goes on,” Hanbury said. “We have been recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as High Research and Community Engaged, and NSU is also designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education.”
Hensler said NSU has been able to grow because it has focuses almost exclusively on graduate students since it was founded in the early 1960s, when it began as loosely joined conglomerate of local graduate programs.
“The master’s degree is the new bachelor’s degree in terms of advancing your career, and they’ve begun to offer programs in tightly focused areas like conflict resolution and student affairs,” he said.
NSU offers over 60 master’s programs and over 20 doctoral programs.
Hanbury said, “With our roots in graduate-level educational excellence, we are equally dedicated to research and the betterment of our community, our nation and our world. That is the whole story.”
