Massachusetts is ranked 14th in the country for the average amount of student debt per borrower, a Thursday report suggests.
The national student debt average for graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 2013 is $28,400, according to the report. Degree holders from Massachusetts have an average debt of $28,565, with more than half of all 2013 graduates accumulating some amount of debt.
Matthew Reed, who directed The Institute for College Access and Success’s Project on Student Debt, said the report aims to analyze increasing student debt averages for graduates with a bachelor’s degree at a time when the cost of higher education is rising.
“The Project on Student Debt is one of our initiatives where we look at the trends in student borrowing and also how to reduce the need to borrow and make borrowing safer for students who do need to borrow,” he said.
In Massachusetts, graduates from smaller mid-level schools tend to accrue the most debt, according to the report.
“Debt varies from state to state and college-to-college so where you go to school can make a difference,” Reed said. “It’s something that prospective students should take a look at.”
Whether a student chooses to borrow private or federal loans also factors into the level of student debt they accrue, Reed said.
“Federal student loans come with protections such as fixed interest rates for the life of the loan, income based repayment programs, and public service loan forgiveness,” Reed said. “Those are not always available for private loans. Private loans are not a form of financial aid. They often have variable rates, and they do not have customer protections.”
At Boston University, 2013 graduates had an average debt of $37,694, according to the report. BU’s average is higher than the averages at neighboring schools such as Boston College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University.
However, simply looking at debt averages for 2013 BU grads can be deceiving, said BU Assistant Vice President of Public Relations Tom Testa.
“The median debt of the graduating class of 2013 was $29,500,” Testa said. “Only examining the average amount borrowed [money] can be misleading because a small number of BU graduates borrow large amounts that skew the average,” he said. “Only 2 percent of [BU] students default on their student loans, compared to the national average of about 14 percent.”
Kevin Lang, a professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the rising averages of student debt is related to a combination of both poor labor market forces and increasing tuition costs.
“For those people who are returning to school because they are facing poor labor markets, and they would be working part time while in school — those type of people are going to have more difficulty earning and that will increase the debt,” Lang said. “The other side [of the rising student debt average] is tuition in the United States has continued to rise which will also tend to cause students to incur more debt.”
Julia Matta, a CAS sophomore, said BU’s financial aid should be more allocated with the mounting cost of tuition.
“BU should either provide more accommodations for people who need it most or reduce unnecessary spending in order to decrease tuition costs,” she said.
School of Management sophomore Tim McCall said the benefits of having a college education outweigh the burden of student debt.
“What this report is saying is that college is a huge investment,” he said. “Where you decide to go with that investment and what you do with it is what’s important.”
