Student Loan Debt: What States Have Highest Average Debt Per Borrower?

As more and more students take out loans to finance their education, student loan debt is no doubt increasing. The increase in debt is due to the fact that students are taking out loans for larger amounts and the speed with which borrowers repay their debts has slowed down, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

At the end of 2016, student loan balances 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.

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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LendEdu collected its data from the annual Peterson's voluntary financial aid survey that collected responses from 1,161 institutions. The data is self reported by colleges and universities, and only data from four-year public and private nonprofit colleges and universities was analyzed. LendEdu used a weighting system to calculate the average student debt per borrower per state. LendEdu notes that the data was provided by colleges on a voluntary basis and LendEdu did not audit the accuracy of the data. (Click here to see LendEdu's full methodology.)

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.

Photo by Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press