After a sharp jump during the worst of the recession, new figures show the number of students defaulting on federal loans seems to be stabilizing. Students at for-profit colleges continue to have the highest default rates but the sector saw some improvement compared to last year.

The latest cohort default rates, released Friday by the Department of Education, show 13.4 percent of student borrowers whose first payments came due in fiscal 2009 had fallen behind by last September, or within three years of entering repayment. That was down slightly from a 13.8 percent trial rate calculated last year for the cohort that entered repayment in 2008.