The average debt of students graduating from American colleges with loans was $20,098 in 2007, up 6 percent from the previous year’s class, according to a new report from the Project on Student Debt. (PDF of full report here.) At the same time, the average income for 18- to 24-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees rose by only 3 percent.
So if student loan repayments eat up a bigger share of a young adult’s income, does that mean less money for things like housing? And does that mean young adults will be less likely to settle in states with high costs of living — like Massachusetts?
The report ranks Massachusetts 19th in the average debt of its graduating students ($21,090), with one of the biggest jumps in the nation between 2006 and 2007 (up 11 percent, or almost double the national rate). The Bay State is 21st in the percentage of all graduates who have student loan debt (63 percent).
The states with the highest average debts were Iowa ($26,208), New Hampshire ($25,211), and Alaska ($24,970). The lowest average debts were in Utah ($13,266), Hawaii ($14,911), and New Mexico ($15,784). According to the report:
New England states are disproportionately represented among the “high debt” states while those in the Far West region are disproportionately represented among the “low debt” states. This may be related to the fact that New England states tend to have more students than average attending private colleges, and higher than average tuition for both public and private colleges, while western states tend to have more students attending public colleges and lower than average tuition at public colleges.
See data on individual schools here.