Student loan default data highlights for-profits

    (AP) - It can be tough paying back those student loans.
    The Department of Education says one in five people who take out federal student loans to attend for-profit colleges default on the loan within three years of starting to pay it back.
    Currently, schools with default rates of more than 25 percent for two straight years can be disqualified, but experts argue that some schools have been manipulating their figures.
    So starting in 2012, colleges will be judged on how many students default within three years of starting repayment, though the new threshold default rate for sanctions will be 30 percent instead of 25 percent.
    In recent years only a handful of schools have lost eligibility for federal aid because of high default rates.
    But the new data shows more than 300 schools - most of them for-profit - had three-year default rates higher than 30 percent.
   
    (Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)