Student loans are on the rise, and current graduates are disproportionately affected compared to graduates in years past.

Your ability to payback depends mostly on the employment you receive after you graduate.

According to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper:

For every additional $1,000 borrowed, the likelihood of nonpayment rises by 0.4 percentage points. Put differently, to offset every additional $1,000 you borrow, you need to earn an additional $10,000 in income or your risk of nonpayment will rise.

Students most likely to pay back their loans had the highest salaries and went to four year schools, which means that students who took loans to go to community colleges and other programs were most likely to default on student loans.

Other interesting factors include whether or not your mother went to college, your gender, and race.

You’re more likely to take out more in loans if your mother didn’t go to college.

Also:

While men and women have “nearly identical” default rates, according to the paper, “women have defaulted on 80% more debt than have men.”

It appears race may also be a factor:

black borrowers still owe 51% of their student loans 10 years after college, while white borrowers owe only 16%. Hispanics and Asians owe 22% and 24%, respectively.

The bottom line is this: don’t take out student loans beyond what you absolutely need and can’t pay. Choose a school that’s more cost-effective than prestigious. Start working on obtaining employment at least 2 years before graduation. And don’t graduate with an enormous ball-and-chain of debt.

One of the interesting aspects of student loans is how much the responsibility falls on the young adult, not their parents, to make an informed decision.

The hope is that parents are still a resource of information and will be able to guide their students through this process.

However, a recent poll showed the following:

Almost half (48 percent) of the people surveyed by the Credit Union National Association, a national trade association for credit unions, said they don’t know how many loans their children will need to take out to pay for college. About a quarter of families were also clueless on the total dollar amount their children would need to borrow over the years.

It’s no wonder that many students are having difficulty making informed decisions when it comes to choosing debt. Their parents are either kept out of the loop or are not informed enough to advise their child on the best options to make.

Choosing to go to college is one of the most important decisions in a young person’s life. It’s a shame that so many adults don’t choose to inform themselves to help the next generation.

Student debt has increased at a record rate in the past few years.

Also, compensation for university leaders—presidents, provosts, and administrative faculty—has increased at a record rate.

According to a Institute for Policy Studies paper:

At the 25 public universities with the highest-paid presidents, both student debt and the use of part-time adjunct faculty grew far faster than at the average state university from 2005 to 2012.

The tenuous connection is likely due to executive compensation requiring larger budgets, which are funded with higher tuition rates requiring students to take out more loans and increase their debt.

The salary rates for these top executives is surprisingly high:

While the average executive compensation at public research universities increased 14 percent from 2009 to 2012, to an average of $544,554, compensation for the presidents of the highest-paying universities increased by a third, to $974,006, during that period.

Public universities have to publicly disclose employee compensation. So if you or your child is currently looking for a university to attend, take a look at the compensation for top employees. It might give you a window into future tuition increases and whether or not your dream school is affordable.