Private loans only make up about 8% of total student loan debt
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/stude... https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics
College tuitions and housing prices vary wildly, many students live with family, many students have merit based scholarships. Many states have copied Georgia and have lottery funded scholarships that covers the majority of in state tuition for students with a B average in high school.
>Or, more likely, the stats are collected poorly as they typically are.
The stats are widely available along with the data collection methodology. If you want to stick with your confirmation bias that's fine I suppose.
There's no context that changes this. Private loans make up less than 8% of all student debt. There are numerous sources available. This isn't in dispute by anyone (except maybe yourself).
Given that fact, the only way your premise, that the vast majority of students take private loans, can be true is if most students take very very small private loans of less than a few thousand dollars.
And even that is demonstrably false. Because we have data that clearly shows that the vast majority of students don't take private loans.
https://research.collegeboard.org/pdf/trends-student-aid-201...
>...that scholarships are rare...
More than 75% of full time students receive at least 1 scholarship or grant. Most of them aren't enough to cover the full tuition much less room and board, but they aren't rare.
And in many states have large scholarship programs as I've mentioned where tens of thousands of students in the state get that scholarship.
>The evidence I have readily available concludes...
Confirmation bias is something to watch out for. There's no evidence outside of your personal experience to support the conclusion that "the vast majority of students take private loans."
