How Many People Have Student Loan Debt?

About 43.5 million Americans have federal student loan debt. Find out how many people have student loan debt by year, state, age, degree level, and other demographics in this guide.

Chloe Appleby

Writer

Chloe Appleby is an associate writer for BestColleges. She contributes to both the News and Data teams, writing both higher education news stories and data reports for the site. She graduated from Davidson College with a BA in English and communicati...

Updated on February 28, 2023

Edited by

Lyss Welding

Editor & Writer

Lyss Welding is a higher education analyst and data writer for BestColleges who specializes in translating massive data sets and finding statistics that matter to students. Lyss has worked in academic research, curriculum design, and program evaluati...

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Fact-checked by Marley Hall

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Data Summary

As of 2022, 43.5 million Americans have federal student loans.^[1]
Approximately 13% of all Americans had federal student loan debt in 2021.^{Note Reference [1], [2]}
In 2022, 9.9 million borrowers have between $20,000-$40,000 of student loan debt.^{Note Reference [1]}
A larger percentage of female undergraduate students received federal loans than male undergraduates between 1999 and 2018.^[3]
Georgia is the state with the highest percentage of its population in student loan debt at 15.4%. Hawaii has the lowest percentage of residents in debt at 8.6%.^{Note Reference [1], [4]}

One of the most important considerations that students think about when making their college choice is cost and how they are going to pay for school.

Federal student loans can help students pursue higher education if they are not able to afford the rising cost of college on their own. However, with student loans inevitably comes student loan debt.

Whether they are in debt by $5,000 or $200,000, over 43 million people in the United States have student loan debt. In this report, we've rounded up the latest data about how many people have student loan debt, including by state, age, gender, and ethnicity.

How Many People Have Student Loans Over Time
Student Loan Borrowers by Debt Size
How Many People Have Student Loans by Demographic
How Many People Have Student Loans by State
References

How Many People Have Student Loans Over Time

In the past decade, the average cost of college tuition increased by 20%, from $11,397 to $13,677.^[5] As the cost of college continues to rise, the number of people with student loans has also increased.

As of 2022, 43.5 million Americans have federal student loans.^{Note Reference [1]}
The average increase of borrowers per year between 2007 and 2022 was approximately 1 million borrowers.^{Note Reference [1]}
Between 2018 and 2020, the number of borrowers plateaued at 42.9 million borrowers before reaching its peak of 43.5 million borrowers in 2022.^{Note Reference [1]}
The largest increase of borrowers year over year occurred between 2008 and 2011, when there was an increase of 2.2 million additional borrowers per year for three years straight.^{Note Reference [1]}

Student Loan Borrowers by Debt Size

In 2022, 9.9 million borrowers held between $20,000-$40,000 in student loan debt, the largest group of borrowers by debt size.^{Note Reference [1]}
Just over 19 million borrowers had student debt between $10,000-$40,000 in 2022. This group made up about 42% of all student loan borrowers.^{Note Reference [1]}
Only 1 million borrowers had debt over $200,000 in 2022.^{Note Reference [1]}
In the last five years, the number of borrowers with debts under $20,000 decreased by about 1.2 million borrowers. And the number of borrowers with debt larger than $20,000 increased by about 400,000 borrowers.^{Note Reference [1]}

How Many People Have Student Loans by Demographic

How Many People Have Student Loans by Race and Ethnicity

Based on data from the American Council on Education and the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2015-16 school year:

69% of all bachelor's recipients had student loan debt, or around 1.3 million students.^{[6], [7]}
Approximately 842,000 white students, 168,000 Black students, and 158,000 Hispanic students who received a bachelor's degree that year incurred student loan debt.^{Note Reference [6], Note Reference [7]}
Despite lower overall numbers of borrowers than white students, Black students had a much higher rate of student loan borrowing considering their total student population size. About 86% of Black bachelor's recipients borrowed compared to just 70% of white bachelor's recipients.^{Note Reference [6], Note Reference [7]}

Bachelor's Recipients Who Borrowed Student Loans in 2015-16, by Race/Ethnicity
Racial/Ethnic Group	Percent of Bachelor's Recipients	Number of Bachelor's Recipients
All racial/ethnic groups	68.9%	1,323,396
White	70.3%	841,718
Black	86.4%	167,968
Hispanic or Latino	67.3%	158,282
Asian/Pacific Islander	58.8%	81,298
American Indian/Alaska Native	76.2%	7,418
Two or more races	73.7%	45,387

How Many People Have Student Loans by Gender

In general, more women tend to have student loan debt than men. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics:

In the 2017-18 school year, just over 441,000 male bachelor's students had student loan debt compared to about 697,000 female bachelor's students.^{Note Reference [7], [8]}
Although in 2017-18 more female students were pursuing their bachelor's degree than men, a larger percentage of women had student loan debt compared to male students (61% vs. 52%).^{Note Reference [8]}
Between 1999-2018, a consistently larger percentage of female undergraduate students received federal loans than male undergraduates.^{Note Reference [3]}

It is important to note that not all student loan borrowers fall into strictly male or female binaries. Transgender and nonbinary students might have a sex assigned at birth that does not coincide with their gender identity and/or expression.

How Many People Have Student Loans by Age

Although people across many age groups can incur education-related debt, nearly two-thirds of borrowers are between the ages of 25 and 49.^{Note Reference [1]}

There were 15 million borrowers aged 25-34 in 2022. This represents a slight decline from five years ago (2017), when there were 15.2 million borrowers within this same age group.^{Note Reference [1]}
Within all other age groups, the last five years have seen increases in the amount of student loan borrowers.^{Note Reference [1]}
The majority of borrowers in 2022 are between the ages of 25 and 49.^{Note Reference [1]}

By the end of 2022, there were:

7.3 million borrowers younger than 24.^{Note Reference [1]}
15 million borrowers aged 24-34.^{Note Reference [1]}
14.6 million borrowers aged 35-49.^{Note Reference [1]}
6.5 million borrowers aged 50-61.^{Note Reference [1]}
2.6 million borrowers who are 62 and older.^{Note Reference [1]}

How Many People Have Student Loans by Degree and School Type

In the 2017-18 academic year, over 1.1 million bachelor's recipients and 350,00 associate degree recipients had student loans.^{Note Reference [8], [9]}

Total Number of Graduates With Federal Student Loans by School Type and Degree Level, 2017-18
Degree Level	Public	Private Nonprofit	Private For-Profit
Associate Degree	248,069	38,972	63,313
Bachelor's Degree	714,484	345,519	72,949

Though the total number of students who graduated with student loan debt from public schools was higher overall than from private schools, this is only because many more students attend public colleges. Students who graduated from private schools held student loans at higher rates than those graduating from public schools.^{Note Reference [8], Note Reference [9]}

How Many People Have Student Loans by State

The number of student loan borrowers varies across state lines. Although the median percentage of a state's student loan debt was 13% in 2022, there were a few standouts — Washington D.C. has the highest percentage of its population that holds student loan debt at almost 17.7%, and Hawaii has the lowest at around 8.6%.^{Note Reference [1], [10]}