Debt: Bachelor’s Degree Recipients
Among students who received bachelor’s degrees in 2019–20, 60.5 percent borrowed an average of $29,743 and had a median debt among borrowers of $26,852 at graduation. The share of bachelor’s degree recipients who borrowed money to help finance their education decreased 8.4 percentage points between 2015–16 and 2019–20, from 68.9 percent to 60.5 percent. [1]
Report Links
Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education: 2024 Status Report
Chapter Six: How Students Finance Undergraduate Education
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Source
U.S. Department of Education, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 2020
Notes:
Institutions were categorized into sectors based upon control of the institution and the length of the predominant award granted.
Data for for the following borrowing rates should be interpreted with caution. Estimate is unstable because the standard error represents more than 30 percent of the estimate.
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Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, percent who borrowed, 2019-2020
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International students, percent who borrowed, 2019-2020
Reporting standards not met for the following data:
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American Indian or Alaska Native, average amount borrowed per borrower, 2019-2020
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Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, average amount borrowed per borrower, 2019-2020
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International students, average amount borrowed per borrower, 2019-2020
[1] Data from 2015–16 is from Espinosa et al. 2019.