Ask for the "average student debt after graduation" and you can get several different answers that all sound correct.
Some figures include every borrower in the federal student-loan system. Some cover recent bachelor's graduates. Some include people who never completed. Some exclude students who did not borrow. Private loans and Parent PLUS loans may or may not be included.
That is why Readers should not publish one giant debt number without explaining what it means.
For comparing colleges, the most useful measure is often debt among graduates who borrowed, paired with the earnings and completion data for the same school.
Start with the number that matches the decision
The College Scorecard publishes cumulative federal student-loan debt measures, including median debt for students who completed.
That is useful because it answers a practical question:
Among federal-loan borrowers who actually completed at this institution, how much debt did the typical borrower accumulate?
That is not the same as the average debt of every graduate.
Students who never borrowed are not carrying federal loan debt. Parent loans are not included in the Scorecard's student cumulative-debt measure. Private student loans are not fully captured either.
The label matters.
Median is often better than average for college comparisons
Debt can be skewed by a smaller number of borrowers with very high balances.
The median is the midpoint: half of borrowers are below it and half are above it.
That makes it useful for comparing institutions.
A useful comparison should default to median debt where that is the source metric and never relabel it "average debt" just because the search keyword says average.
The article can target the search phrase while explaining the better statistic.
Debt varies sharply by college
This is where the national figure becomes less useful.
Students at two colleges can earn the same type of degree and leave with very different debt because of:
- tuition and fees;
- grants;
- state funding;
- family income;
- time to degree;
- living costs;
- transfer patterns;
- institutional aid.
A $20,000 difference in federal debt is not abstract.
It can affect:
- monthly cash flow;
- ability to save;
- housing choices;
- career flexibility;
- graduate-school decisions;
- how much risk a young worker can tolerate.
Debt without earnings is half a statistic
A $35,000 debt balance may be manageable for one graduate and oppressive for another.
Compare it with earnings.
The concerning quadrant is straightforward:
high debt + relatively low graduate earnings
The more attractive quadrant is:
low debt + relatively high graduate earnings
This does not create a perfect ROI measure, but it is much more informative than debt alone.
Graduates and non-completers face different risks
One of the most useful Scorecard distinctions is debt by completion status.
A student who leaves with $15,000 in debt and no credential can be in a worse financial position than a graduate with a higher balance and stronger earnings.
That is why completion belongs in any debt article.
Do not interpret lower debt among non-completers as a positive outcome. They may have borrowed less because they spent less time enrolled.
Don't read this number the wrong way: less debt is not automatically better if the student left without the degree.
Parent PLUS and private loans can make the real family burden higher
Federal student debt does not capture every dollar families borrow for college.
Parents may borrow through Parent PLUS. Students and families may also use private education loans.
That means the debt shown on A useful comparison should be labeled precisely.
Do not write:
"Graduates at this college owe $24,000."
Write:
"Among federal student-loan borrowers who completed, median cumulative student debt was $24,000."
That is less catchy and far more trustworthy.
What is a reasonable amount of student debt?
There is no magic number.
A better rule is to compare borrowing with the likely earnings from the actual degree and college.
A student considering $25,000 of debt for a strong nursing program is looking at a different repayment profile from a student considering $90,000 for a program with much lower post-college earnings.
A useful comparison should help readers model:
- total federal debt;
- estimated monthly payment under a standard plan;
- graduate earnings;
- debt as a share of annual earnings;
- time required to repay under different assumptions.
This turns a generic article into a decision tool.
Sticker price can badly mislead the debt conversation
An expensive college can sometimes offer enough grant aid to become affordable.
A lower-sticker-price school can provide little aid.
That is why readers should compare net price, not published tuition alone.
Related: How to compare colleges
The full picture is:
net price → borrowing → completion → earnings → repayment
Skipping any one of those can produce the wrong conclusion.
Look at debt by income where available
College Scorecard includes debt disaggregations for some borrower groups.
This can reveal whether a college's borrowing burden falls differently across students.
A useful comparison should surface these carefully where sample sizes and reporting permit.
It should not overinterpret tiny subgroups.
Why a low-debt college can still be a bad deal
Suppose a school has low median debt because many students leave quickly.
That is not necessarily a success.
Or suppose the school is inexpensive but has very weak completion and earnings.
Again, low debt alone does not save the outcome.
The right question is not "Which colleges have the lowest debt?"
It is:
Which colleges keep borrowing manageable and get students to completion and produce reasonable post-college earnings?
That is the DegreeVerdict lens.
How to use debt when comparing your offers
Once you have financial-aid offers, ignore generic national averages for a moment.
Build a four-column comparison:
| College | Your estimated net cost | Expected borrowing | Relevant graduate outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| School A | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| School B | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| School C | Not available | Not available | Not available |
Your personal borrowing estimate matters more than a national average.
DegreeVerdict's institutional debt number is a benchmark, not your bill.
If your expected debt is dramatically higher than the school's typical graduate borrower, ask why.
Why your personal debt can be very different from the college median
A school's median tells you what happened to prior borrowers.
Your borrowing depends on your own aid package.
Two students at the same university can face radically different prices because of:
- family income;
- merit scholarships;
- need-based grants;
- residency;
- housing choices;
- outside scholarships;
- family contributions.
That is why the college-level median is a benchmark rather than a forecast.
Once you have your financial-aid offer, calculate your own expected debt for each year.
Then stress-test it.
What happens if tuition rises? What if you lose a merit scholarship? What if graduation takes five years instead of four?
A plan that works only under the best-case scenario is fragile.
Monthly payment is useful, but don't let it hide the principal
College sites and loan calculators sometimes turn debt into a monthly payment because monthly numbers feel manageable.
That can help budgeting.
It can also make a large debt balance feel smaller than it is.
A useful comparison should display both.
For example:
Median federal debt among completers: $XX,XXX<br/>Illustrative standard-plan payment: $XXX/month
Any payment estimate must state the interest-rate assumption and repayment term. Federal repayment rules can change, so do not hardcode one plan indefinitely.
The principal balance remains the cleanest cross-college comparison.
Debt-to-earnings is a screening tool, not a promise
A simple ratio can be valuable:
median graduate debt ÷ graduate earnings
Lower is generally more comfortable.
But it is not a complete personal-finance model.
Taxes, location, interest rates, family obligations and career growth all affect repayment. Earnings data also represent historical cohorts.
Use the ratio to identify potential red flags, then inspect the underlying numbers.
The worst debt outcome may be debt without completion
This deserves repetition because it is easy to miss.
Students who withdraw can have lower cumulative debt than graduates simply because they spent less time enrolled.
That does not make withdrawal financially safer.
They may enter repayment without the credential they intended to buy.
For that reason, DegreeVerdict's debt pages should always provide a route to the college's completion data. Debt and completion belong together.
A debt number needs a date
Debt figures age.
Tuition rises, aid changes, borrowing limits change and cohorts move through the system.
Every DegreeVerdict debt number should therefore show the underlying reporting period or cohort.
Do not stamp the article "2026" and make readers assume the debt was incurred by students graduating this year if the federal data refer to an earlier cohort.
The cleanest presentation is:
Median federal debt among completers: $XX,XXX<br/>Federal cohort/reporting period: YYYY–YY
That small label does more for trust than a paragraph of methodology hidden at the bottom.
The DegreeVerdict verdict
There is no single "average student debt after graduation" number that should drive a college choice.
For comparison, use a clearly defined measure: median federal student debt among graduates who borrowed, then place it next to net price, completion and earnings.
Debt is not automatically bad.
Debt without enough payoff is.
Compare student debt, earnings and cost across colleges →
About the data
A useful comparison should use the current College Scorecard cumulative-debt definitions. Scorecard debt metrics cover federal student borrowing and exclude Parent PLUS loans; private loans are not comprehensively captured. GRAD_DEBT_MDN refers to median cumulative debt among borrowers categorized as completers under the Scorecard methodology. All labels on the page must preserve those distinctions.