Thirty-one percent of student borrowers in Puerto Rico have gone nine months or more without paying

On August 6, 2026, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo publishes, with data from the Federal Student Aid office through March 2026, that Puerto Rico has the highest rate in the United States of student loans delinquent for more than nine months: 31 percent. Some 104,000 former students are in default. Mississippi follows at 28 percent; Louisiana at 27; Alabama, Nevada, and Arizona at 25 each. Those rates are the federal Department of Education's via the CPI and Associated Press. They are not averaged with other employment series.

Five financial-aid officers told the CPI that the delinquency could place institutions on probation and put the Pell Grant at risk. The federal Handbook, the outlet cites, withdraws eligibility if the cohort default rate reaches 30 percent or more for three consecutive years. There are 14 campuses with a rate equal to or greater than 30 percent on loans more than 90 days late. Northbridge University, formerly NUC, appears at 58 percent past 90 days; the institution said its official 2026 CDR is at 1 percent. The CPI does not flatten that difference.

Between 2020 and 2025, some 336,900 loans processed in Puerto Rico entered repayment. Default represents 16 percent of active student debt at local institutions. By type: 36 percent at for-profit institutions, 19 at private nonprofits, 11 at public ones. Universidad Ana G. Mendez, in Gurabo, Carolina, and Cupey, records 24 percent at 90 days or more. The Católica, 17 percent of some 7,900 loans.

Economist Jose Caraballo Cueto placed June unemployment at 5.8 percent, second jurisdiction in the United States after Washington D.C. at 6 percent. That is his figure, published by the CPI. It is not used here to rebut the July unemployment note NotiCel covered on August 22 at another URL.

The CPI also names the end of the SAVE plan and the loan caps federal Education applies from July: up to 50,000 a year and 200,000 in total for professional programs, and 20,500 and 100,000 for other graduate study. What was published remains. A reader who wants the campus tables has the CPI URL at the foot.

Source: Centro de Periodismo Investigativo. https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2026/08/impago-prestamos-estudiantiles-afectaria-ayudas/