Join the businesses who have begun to edge out competitors by scouring the web for alternative data.

One of the myriad publicly available data trails that we plot here at Thinknum is based on the loans consumers take out at Lending Club ($LC). This pioneer in the peer-to-peer loan space has originated around $16 billion in loans since its founding in 2006.

Because Lending Club lists the loans it issues as part of its desire to be transparent (and to meet federal laws), we're able to distill what kinds of loans are issued and to whom.

When we solved for job titles, we discovered that teachers take out the most Lending Club loans with 47,761 loans issued. "Manager" and "Owner" follow, but as you'll see in the chart below, teacher reappears (with a lower-case "t") with another 8,777 loans issued.

Job Title Loans Filed Teacher 47,761 Manager 45,578 Owner 39,303 Supervisor 20,770 Registered Nurse 19,677 Driver 19,266 owner 18,426 RN 18,396 Sales 17,448 President 13,702 Project Manager 13,422 Office Manager 12,465 Director 11,838 General Manager 11,809 manager 11,516 Engineer 9,072 teacher 8,777 Vice President 8,416 driver 8,247 Operations Manager 7,589

If our Lending Club data says anything, it's that teachers need extra cash more than just about anyone. It's also possibly a sign that teachers are good risks as they have steady income and pay their bills.

The above chart described daily average principals issued to teachers. Interestingly, spikes appear during the summer when teachers are often not working.

This chart shows average monthly income for the teachers requesting loans. It's widely beleived that teachers aren't paid as well as they should be.

Finally, in the chart above we see the average revolving credit balance for teachers taking out loans at Lending Club. Average appears under $20,000 with some high outliers especially during the warmer months.

Teachers are no strangers to debt. A recent report from NPR unveiled that thousands of teachers have had their federal grants converted to loans for failing to meet the requirements of what's called a TEACH Grant. Meanwhile, some debt consolidation services like InCharge market specifically to teachers.

It seems that many teacher begin their careers already saddled with debt, and without a salary to pay it back, they continue to dig deeper. According to a 2017 survey by NPR, a rising number of teachers are scared - and even terrified - of the amount of debt they are carrying.