Each year, the U.S. Department of Education provides Official Cohort Default Rates among SDSU students who have graduated. The default rate is the percentage of an institution’s borrowers who enter repayment on certain federal loans during a fiscal year and default within three fiscal years. Federal fiscal years (FY) begin October 1 and end September 30 and each fiscal year refers to the calendar year in which it ends.
An institution risks losing federal financial aid if the default rate exceeds 30%; SDSU strives to minimize student default on loans and the reports show a default rate of less than 5% since FY 2013.
Title IV institutions are required to disclose Cohort Default Rates and the Higher Learning Commission is evaluating whether to include loan repayment outcomes as measures of student success.
Official Cohort Default Rate Report, 2018-2020 (NSLDS)
| Cohort Fiscal Year | Official Default Rate | Number of Borrowers in Default | Number of Borrowers in Repayment | Enrollment Figures | Percentage Calculation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 0 | 0 | 2,605 | 13,937 | 18.69% |
| 2019 | 0.7 | 22 | 2,821 | 14,785 | 19.08% |
| 2018 | 2.7 | 76 | 2,793 | 15,244 | 18.32% |
Enrollment Note: To provide context for the Cohort Default Rate (CDR) data, NSLDS includes Enrollment Figures (students enrolled at any time during the year) and the corresponding Percentage Calculation (borrowers entering repayment divided by that enrollment figure). There is no direct relationship between the timing of when a borrower entered repayment and any particular enrollment year; we have chosen to use the academic year ending on the 30th of June before the beginning of the cohort year. Cohort Default Rate (CDR) data is not displayed when Number of Borrowers in Repayment (number of borrowers entering repayment in cohort) includes 10 or few borrowers.
Cohort Default Rates
| School | FY09 | FY10 | FY11 | FY12 | FY13 | FY14 | FY15 | FY16 | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota State University | 4.6% | 5.1% | 4.2% | 4.6% | 4.0% | 4.8% | 4.8% | 4.2% | 3.8% | 2.7% | 0.7% | 0.0% |
| Public (all) | 2.3% | 0.0% | ||||||||||
| Public (4-Year) | 1.8% | 0.0% | ||||||||||
| Private | 1.7% | 0.0% | ||||||||||
| South Dakota^ | 8.5% | 10.9% | 9.1% | 8.2% | 7.6% | 8.6% | 7.9% | 6.6% | 6.6% | 5.2% | 1.3% | 0.0% |
| Totals | 11.3% | 11.5% | 10.8% | 10.1% | 9.7% | 7.3% | 2.3% | 0.0% |
^ All South Dakota institutions minus SDSU and type-three institutions.
* Cohort Default Rates (CDR) as published by U.S. Department of Education