We can see here that the ten schools with the highest loan default rate are, interestingly, located largely in the southern part of the state. The worst offender is the Credence Institute of Beauty, with a nearly 30 percent default rate. That’s not so beautiful. It would be worth investigating the high concentration of defaults here because southern Arkansas is, generally speaking, a poorer area. It’s also worth noting that half of these top ten defaulting colleges are beauty/cosmetology schools. The rest are a mixture of community colleges and satellites of larger schools, it looks like. It would be worth investigating the after-graduation income and job opportunities for beauty school grads, as we’ve speculated from day one.
The top ten lowest default rate schools do not have as much of a regional concentration. They’re spread fairly evenly across the state. Including on in southern Arkansas, and a beauty school, at that. The University of Arkansas for Medical Science has the lowest default rate at only 1.5 percent. The University of Arkansas also just barely squeaks onto the list, which is somewhat comforting, personally. The most interesting one to me is Harding University, a private school that has always had the reputation for being very expensive for the education. Interesting value rating, as far as default rates go. There are only three beauty schools on this list, but that still means that the default rates for beauty schools aren’t totally one-sided. So maybe it’s not the smoking gun we’re looking for.
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