The reason for statistics is to get a broad understanding of a complex phenomenon, beyond a single perspective.

Just because you and/or the people you know don't fit the average doesn't mean the average is incorrect.  The world is bigger than just you and your friends.  See HCMY's post above.

According to the national center for education statistics, 35% of college education in the US is from associates only degree programs. And only 58% of college students finish. So yes, the majority of people who have student loan debt don't have much -- and they have even less to show for it. Add to that number the proportion of students who have parents willing to pay for their education (tough to come up with solid numbers here, the only anecdote I have to fall back on was that there are three paying parents for every one deadbeat). So it is likely that the average indebtedness of a population like graduate students of architecture is in the top percentiles anyway. Or you could just consider that professional degrees account for only 3% of degrees in the us, and we expect them to be among the most costly, so They probably are the majority of the 3.1% HandsomCashMoneyYo cites. That still doesn't make it a good idea.

To add to what other posters have said, my anecdata says that most people don't pay the entire bill with loans. More people have some combination of loans, scholarships, grants, savings, work, and/or family help going on, so the total that their schooling costs =/= total loan amount.

Guess I fall in the average . Attended USC 2001-2006, after 5 years, I ended up with roughly $24,000 in loans. As was stated by rationalist, a big chunck of my school was paid by grants.

ha, benny, I was USC class of '05. No wonder we have a similar perspective on things. There were the rich rich kids there who didn't have to worry about a thing, and then the rest of us who sort of pieced it together year after year. 

Thanks to those who commented above. Even in 2005-2006, I do believe college was a fair bit cheaper than it is now, These stats are referring to the most recent grads. However, i'm sure that it wouldn't make a huge difference in loan balance.

I think it's important to remember that these stats do not refer to "rich kids". They refer to people who have taken out loans, and so not everyone is getting averaged in.

To Citizen: I understand that my sample size is extremely limited, but if you take a further look at statistics, the odds that any one person almost exclusively knows people with debt balances beyond the average is quite rare when we are dealing with over a dozen people. My experience has been that people either take out more loans than the average or not all. My sample size consists of people from all different backgrounds and the ones who do actually come from my school played sports albeit d3, but they usually do find a way to get these athletes extra money, and I believe we received sizable scholarships or grants that we may not have had otherwise.  I also believe people underestimate student loan balances more than they overestimate them. I can think of at least three examples where people didn't know they had a loan, and thought they would be coming out with less debt than they actually were.

I thought this was an interesting article: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/05/07/projected-law-school-debt-figures-revised-even-higher/

I'm not going to break it down, but it's obvious the math doesn't add up if law school students are actually projected to come out with $200,000 in debt in 2015. Say someone comes in to LS with 25,000-- They are going to incur an additional 175,000 for a three year degree?

If someone were to say that I need to do more research before making such a claim, I would agree. I understand that this is just a hunch, and I wanted to see if others felt the same way.

Looking at the New York Fed blog posted, above, I believe the statistics on how much people have taken out in loans refer to all current loan-holders, not just loan-holders whose loans originated in the past year. So you dismissing the loan amounts of people older than you is the thing that doesn't jive with the statistics, because the people making the stats are including us in their calculations. So your hunch that people in professional degree programs right at this minute are taking out significantly more may be correct, and the statistics can also be correct. You're just saying different things.

Rationalist-- I'll take a look at that. Perhaps that is the case in some of these articles i've been reading. I thought that $25,000 was the average for a recent grad, but if one were to average in all graduates than that that seems very believable.

I think the sample is all student loans so current students to graduates of the class of 1978.  If the data were per decade we would see a sharp increase on par with tuition increases and deferments due to economic turmoil. First year students and folks nearing the end of their loan repayment are skewing the average down.

My debt is currently 38K for graduate school, undergrad was 2K it depends on what savings you had when going in

The figures mentioned do not include credit card debts car loans or other less frugal means of financing your education. They may not include private loans or all private loans.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/studentloandebt/

the new york fed should be a pretty good source of info, they have graphs, and if you look at the bottom of the page you can follow a link to a pdf that explains where their #s come from

http://www.asa.org/policy/resources/stats/default.aspx

they have charts.  not as cool as graphs.

Thanks for the above info. Peter-- I think you are completely correct. The average debt for a recent graduate including all credit card debt associated with school costs is probably closer to 50k than 25k, just a guess-- but my experience leads me to believe this. If you take the 1 trillion debt divided by 25,000, you get 40,000,000 people. That includes everyone with debt, not just recent. I have also read that some private loans are not easy to track, so it may actually be a bit higher.

I know that a lot of older people on these forums look at 50K as being a very daunting number. I think the point I am trying to make is that for everyone who says don't go to graduate school if you have to take out loans beyond your first years salary, they're being VERY unrealistic.

The average M.Arch grad in 2015 will probably be in at least 6-figure debt. It's not a good thing, but not having an advanced degree will also make you less competetive in the years to come. I know everyone has different circumstances, but if you're single without kids and you can't make some serious headway on 75-100K debt with a resonable interest rate on a 50K salary, you're just not good with money.

the high cost of college is certainly a problem. With social security running dry, young people should be putting more away for retirement earlier and it's made more difficult with loans, but I also think that college loans over the long term can be a good investment even when it is significantly more than first year salary.

Some of you may enjoy reading this as much as I did--it originally ran in Harper's magazine:

http://billtotten.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/the-price-of-admission/

(no idea who bill totten is--i take no responsibility for whatever may or may not be on his blog--i just googled the piece and found it reproduced there.)

I would advise reading the recent Doonesbury story arc too :)

http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2012/08/06

great web site...thanks for gocomics!