It is difficult to understand why a special study is needed to conclude that college dropouts are about 10 times more likely to default on loans than borrowers who complete their degrees. But that’s the gem of wisdom that the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education came up with after examining the 2001 financial situations of students who entered college in 1995.

Of course dropouts are not as likely to repay education loans as graduates. The big trouble is that there are graduates who periodically contend they need not repay their loans since they did not get jobs as good as they felt their college study should guarantee. With a mentality like that, why should there be any surprise that dropouts are worse deadbeats? They, too, can use disappointment as a ruse.

It is easy to sympathize with people who have to plunge into debt to get college diplomas. At California-Berkeley, students who rely on loans generally graduate with at least $15,000 to $20,000 debts. Other schools have even more frightening figures and there are millions and millions of dollars due from people who have taken out college loans.

But there is good news on this front. Officials say that about 95 percent of graduates meet their repayment obligations and often on the time schedule they agreed to when the got the funding.

“Student borrowing, done responsibly, is a good thing,” says Richard Black, associate vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment at Berkeley. But not for community college studies, he adds.

“I believe that at a community college, students should not be relying on loans,” says Brenda Jerez, financial aid director at Diablo Valley College in California. “I would recommend borrowing when they transfer to a four-year college.” She thinks community college students are better off working part-time rather than incurring debt.

Student loan programs long have been sources of concern for educators because of the tendency of a surprising number of borrowers to renege for one reason or other. They are quick to laud those who meet their commitments and stress that keeps the programs working to aid others. But it does not take a large number of high-dollar borrowers who don’t meet their bills to cause great problems for the smaller loan programs.

The student loan process has been with us now for decades and has made it possible for many thousands of students to complete their degrees. However, dropout defaults have always been a problem, and it shouldn’t take a big study to “discover” that dropouts are 10 times more likely not to repay their loans than those who go on to graduate.