Students in California protest budget cuts in public education in March 2010. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

By Becky Yerak | A growing number of college-bound teenagers are changing their plans for
higher education by working more, staying closer to home, opting for a
community college or delaying enrolling, a new study shows.

According to a newly released joint study by Junior Achievement and the
Allstate Foundation, 63 percent of teens surveyed said they’ve changed
their college plans because of the economy, up from 55 percent last
year.

Included within the 63 percent, the study found that 41 percent are working more to pay for college, 37 percent are staying closer to home or are not attending college out of state, 21 percent plan to go to a community college, and 15 percent might delay school for at least a year.

And a quarter of respondents said they haven’t yet figured out how they’ll pay for college.

Eighty-six percent of teens say they plan on getting college scholarships, but they might be overly optimistic as only 66 percent of all undergraduates received some type of financial aid in 2007-08, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Of those students who do get some financial aid, the department said the median amount of student-loan debt carried by 2007-08 bachelor’s degree graduates at public four-year colleges was $17,700. It was $22,375 at private four-year colleges.

Student loan default rates are up from 5.2 percent in 2006 to 6.7 percent in 2007, the study said.

The telephone survey consisted of a national sample of 1,000 teens, 500 males and 500 females, 12 to 17 years old, from Feb. 11 to Feb. 15, 2010. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percent.