What is the typical debt load for graduates of four-year public universities?
The vast majority of four-year public university graduates complete their undergraduate degree with a relatively modest and manageable amount of student debt. About 42 percent of students at four-year public universities finished their bachelor’s degree* without any debt and 78 percent graduated with less than $30,000 in debt. Only 4 percent of public university graduates left with more than $60,000. And those with over $100,000 in debt are rarer still: they are anomalies representing less than half of 1 percent of all four-year public university undergraduates completing their degrees. 1
Student Debt in Perspective
Student loans help pay for tuition and fees, as well as room and board and other educational costs like textbooks. Among those who borrow, the average debt at graduation is $25,921 – or $6,480 for each year of a four-year degree at a public university. Among all public university graduates, including those who didn’t borrow payday loans PA, the average debt at graduation is $16,300. 1 To put that amount of debt in perspective, consider that the average bachelor’s degree holder earns about $25,000 more per year than the average high school graduate. 2 Bachelor’s degree holders make $1 million in additional earnings over their lifetime.” 3