Student Loan Debt: Michigan Among States With Highest Average Debt Per Borrower

Students at Michigan’s public and private colleges and university have one of the highest student loan debt loads in the country when they graduate, according to a recent study. Students are taking out larger amounts of money, but the speed at which they’re paying them back has slowed, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Michigan ranked 11th among U.S. states in the amount of loan debt students take on. On average, they owed $30,327 in student loans in 2016, a .181 percent increase from the year prior. Nearly two-third of students — 64 percent — had loans.

At the end of 2016, student loan balances nationwide stood at about $1.3 trillion, a whopping 170 percent increase from 2006. The New York Fed says that in 2016 only about 5 percent of student debt holders owed more than $100,000 in debt, however, they account for nearly 30 percent of the total outstanding balances, creating a disproportionate influence on the overall picture.
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According to recent data analyzed by LendEdu, a student loan refinancing company, the average student loan debt per borrower for the class of 2016 is $27,975, a decrease of 1.5 percent from the class of 2015. The data showed that Pennsylvania had the highest average student loan debt per borrower in the entire country. LendEdu's report shows that the average student loan debt per borrower in Pennsylvania is $35,185

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According to LendEdu's analysis, the states with the highest average student loan debt per borrower are:

1. Pennsylvania: $35,185
2. New Hampshire: $35,143
3. Delaware: $33,650
4. Connecticut: $32,650
5. South Dakota: $31,518
6. Minnesota: $31,342
7. Alabama: $31,257
8. Montana: $30,994
9. Massachusetts: $30,584
10. Rhode Island: $30,549

» Click here to see the full list.

The report noted that Utah had the lowest average student debt per borrower of $18,810. Of the 250 colleges with the highest amount of student loan debt per borrower, 80 percent of the colleges were private, while 47 percent of the 250 colleges with the lowest amount of student loan debt per borrower were public.

Written by By Feroze Dhanoa (Patch National Staff)
Photo by Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press