Report claims Loyola, DePaul in Chicago are among universities pushing high-interest loans on low-income families

A new report finds Loyola and DePaul universities in Chicago are among 41 colleges that appear to push lower-income families toward high-interest Parent PLUS loans.

As the universities do so, they offer expansive financial aid packages to wealthier families, according to the report by the left-leaning think tank New America.

The report found that some parents are pushed to take out loans that exceed their annual earnings, pushing them into debt they can't afford.

Meanwhile, the report says upper-income families with high-achieving students are often offered scholarships on the assumption that they could be high-value donors after graduating.

The report found that in 2023, the 41 universities the think tank identified spent a collective $2.4 billion of their own financial aid funds on students who did not need aid.

But more than 32,000 families of Pell Grant recipients who graduated from or left the 41 schools in the recent pasts were struck with Parent PLUS loans, with a median debt load of about $30,000 each, the report said.

More than half of DePaul students whose parents took out the high-interest Parent PLUS loans also received Pell grants, the report said. At Loyola, that figure was just under half.

CBS News Chicago has reached out to both universities for comment.