How Many People Have Student Loan Debt? | BestColleges (2024)

About 43.4 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.

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

In the past decade, the average cost of college tuition increased by 14%, from $12,615 to $14,307.^[5] As the cost of college continues to rise, the number of people with student loans has also increased.

• 43.2 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 2023, 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]}
• About 19.2 million borrowers had student debt between $10,000-$40,000. This group made up about 42% of all student loan borrowers.^{Note Reference [1]}
• Only 1 million borrowers had debt over $200,000.^{Note Reference [1]}
• In the last five years, the number of borrowers with debts under $20,000 decreased by about 700,000 borrowers. And the number of borrowers with debt larger than $20,000 increased by about 1.1 million borrowers.^{Note Reference [1]}

How Many People Have Student Loans by Demographic

How Many People Have Student Loans by Race and Ethnicity

According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2019-2020 school year, 61% of bachelor's recipients had student loan debt.^[6] Levels of borrowing varied by race/ethnicity.

Black students had a much higher rate of student loan borrowing.

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 2019-20 school year, just over 466,000 male bachelor's students had student loan debt compared to about 778,000 female bachelor's students.^{Note Reference [6], [7]}
• Although in 2019-20 more female students were pursuing their bachelor's degree than men, a larger percentage of women had student loan debt compared to male students (66% vs. 54%).^{Note Reference [6]}
• Between 1999-2020, 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 2023. This represents a slight decline from five years ago (2017), when there were 15.2 million borrowers within this same age group.
• The majority of borrowers are between the ages of 25 and 49.

By the end of 2023, there were:^{Note Reference [1]}

• 7.1 million borrowers younger than 24.
• 15 million borrowers aged 24-34.
• 14.6 million borrowers aged 35-49.
• 6.3 million borrowers aged 50-61.
• 2.7 million borrowers who are 62 and older.

How Many People Have Student Loans by Degree and School Type

In the 2019-20 academic year, over 1.2 million bachelor's recipients and 395,000 associate degree recipients had student loans.^{Note Reference [6], [8]}

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 [6], Note Reference [8]}

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 about 13% in 2023, there were a few standouts — Washington D.C. has the highest percentage of its population that holds student loan debt at almost 17.6%, and Hawaii has the lowest at around 8.7%.^{Note Reference [1], [9]}