{"id":20262,"date":"2022-01-15T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T00:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/data-science\/?p=20262"},"modified":"2025-10-06T20:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T20:31:16","slug":"exploring-student-debt-thecb-60x30tx-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/data-science\/2022\/01\/15\/exploring-student-debt-thecb-60x30tx-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Student Debt: THECB’s 60x30TX Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Exploring Student Debt: THECB's 60x30TX goals<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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For followers of higher education trends, stories detailing the student loan debt crisis is nothing new. With 45 million borrowers owing nearly $1.7 trillion <\/a>in student loan debt as of 2021, and with President Biden extending the federal student loan repayment freeze through May 1, 2022<\/a>, the topic of student debt is top-of-mind for many as we enter the third calendar year under the cloud of COVID-19. It is against this backdrop that we are starting a new series where we will be exploring student loan debt from a variety of perspectives, beginning with a look at data within the state of Texas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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THECB's 60x30TX Plan<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Introduced in 2015, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s (THECB) <\/span>60x30TX Plan<\/a>\u00a0established a series of goals for the state’s public colleges and universities to be achieved by 2030. As can be seen in the image to the right, the four 60x30TX goals range from an educated population to student debt. For the purpose of this blog series, we will be concentrating on Goal 4: Student Debt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"60x30TX\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Debt Reality for Bachelor's Degree Graduates from Public Universities in Texas<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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While the goal statement addresses one aspect of student debt, namely a 60-percent ratio of student loan debt to first-year wages, the THECB also tracks other metrics, which we explore below. In general, the data show that statewide measures related to student loan debt have improved since the introduction of the 60x30TX goals<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Percentage of Students Graduating with Student Debt<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

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  • Based on the visualization below under\u00a0Grads w\/ Debt: Statewide<\/u>, the statewide average has improved year-over-year from 2014 to 2020, dropping from 62.5% to 56.4% during that timespan<\/b>.<\/li>\n
  • Even with the 6.1 percentage point decrease, the count of students graduating with debt has increased. In 2014, there were almost 94,000 bachelor’s degrees awarded by public universities in Texas. That number increased to over 117,000 in 2020. Based on the percentages with debt at graduation, approximately 8,000 more bachelor’s graduates completed their degree with debt in 2020 when compared to 2014<\/b>.<\/li>\n
  • In 2020, the UT System had the lowest percentage of bachelor’s graduates with student loan debt at 52.2%, while the Texas State University System had the highest percentage at 63.1% for public university systems with more than one institution.<\/li>\n
  • Trends comparing 2014 to 2020 (Grads w\/ Debt: 2014 vs 2020<\/u>) show that all of the public university systems improved by at least 3.8 percentage points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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