A typical graduate owes 35% of a year's earnings in student debt (2026)
The typical student leaves a four-year institution owing $21,000 in federal loans and earns $59,979 a year ten years after starting. The debt is 35% of a year of that pay. Civic Forecast calculation from Department of Education College Scorecard median federal debt and median earnings, student-weighted across four-year institutions. A ratio of two published medians, not a repayment forecast.
Induced by API Automations for Civic Forecast from federal open data. Each finding names the datasets it was computed from. How this is calculated.