One of the nuances that often gets lost in discussions about student debt is that the biggest borrowers aren't necessarily the riskiest borrowers. There are many people who take out modest loans but have trouble paying them back, either because they fail to graduate or because their degree doesn't open many doors in the job market.

A statistical case-in-point: According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 17 percent of all student borrowers are 90 days delinquent on their payments, yet only 11.2 percent of all loan balances are that far behind. That gap suggests there are lots of small-time debtors in trouble these days.

Looking at the geography of student borrowing teaches us a similar lesson. As part of its most recent report on household credit, the NY Fed has produced a neat pair of maps detailing which states have the highest education debt burdens and which have highest delinquency rates. The two pictures overlap less than you might expect.

As shown below, student borrowers in the mid-Atlantic, parts of New England, the Southeast, Illinois, and California tend to have above-average balances compared to the rest of the country.

Yet they also have a superior record of paying them back. Delinquency rates in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. are lower than average, even though their debt levels are high. Meanwhile, borrowers in low-debt states like Nevada, New Mexico, and Idaho have some of the worst payment records in the country.