How Redmond College Grads Rank For Student Loan Debt

REDMOND, WA — If you graduate college with student loan debt, try as hard as you can to move to Puget Sound.

A new ranking has found that college graduates living in Puget Sound cities have some of the lowest debt-to-income ratios in the nation. Sammamish had the second-lowest debt-to-income ratio out of the over 2,500 cities on the list, according to the personal finance site WalletHub. Most other cities in the region fared well in the rankings, with all below the 48th percentile.

Sammamish residents with a bachelor's degree had about $16,500 in debt, but were earning a median of $99,229. That means their debt-to-earnings ratio is just 16.5 percent. By comparison, the city with the highest debt-to-earnings ratio in the nation was Sun City West, Ariz. Graduates living in that city left college with about $18,000 in debt, but went on to earn only about $21,000.

The only city that did better than Sammamish was Santa Paula, Calif., which is in a rural area northwest of Los Angeles. The loan-to-debt ratio for graduates there was 15.2 percent.

The ranking was created by comparing TransUnion data on student loan debt to the median income for a person over age 25 with a bachelor's degree in each city on the list.

Here's where other cities in Puget Sound ranked for debt-to-income ratio:

Seattle
Median debt: $22,899
Median income: $61,139
Debt-to-income ratio: 37.45

Redmond
Median debt: $19,386
Median income: $88,682
Debt-to-income ratio: 21.86 percent

Woodinville
Median debt: $15,239
Median income: $68,542
Debt-to-income ratio: 22.23 percent

Kirkland
Median debt: $20,952
Median income: $75,239
Debt-to-income ratio: 27.85 percent

Bellevue
Median debt: $20,525
Median income: $74,785
Debt-to-income ratio: 27.45 percent

Issaquah
Median debt: $20,699
Median income: $81,094
Debt-to-income ratio: 25.52 percent

Mercer Island
Median debt: $24,012
Median income: $76,060
Debt-to-income ratio: 31.57 percent

Renton
Median debt: $16,900
Median income: $57,260
Debt-to-income ratio: 29.51 percent

Shoreline
Median debt: $20,037
Median income: $54,517
Debt-to-income ratio: 36.75 percent