Average student loan debt for Michigan students still tops $30,000

Maria Williams is hoping a little selective reading will help her from keeling over in shock when she gets her first student loan bill in about a year.

"I don't really want to know the total," the Eastern Michigan University senior said Tuesday. "If I just focus on the basic payment due each month, maybe it won't seem so bad. Probably not, but if I see that $25,000 number, that might be it for me."

If Williams, 22, of Ypsilanti, does make it out of school at the end of this school year, she's guessing she'll owe around $25,000. And while that might be a lot of money, it's less than the average owed by the 2016 graduating class at her school and less than the average student loan debt owed by 2016 graduates in Michigan.

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According to new data released today, the average Michigan graduate with loans owes $30,852 in student loans. That includes both federal loans and private loans. Federal loans are capped at $31,000 total for undergraduate dependent students.

There's good news in that number — it's almost the same as the class of 2015, which owed $30,045, according to the data, which are released annually by the Institute for College Access & Success.

Average student debt at graduation in 2016 ranged from $20,000 in Utah to $36,350 in New Hampshire, and new graduates' likelihood of having debt ranged from 43% in Utah to 77% in West Virginia. Average debt varies even more across colleges, from a low of $4,600 for CUNY (N.Y.) York College to a high of $59,100 for Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana.

"College is one of the biggest investments Americans make, yet many are making choices without basic information, including how much debt they can expect to graduate with, which varies wildly from college to college and state to state," said Debbie Cochrane, TICAS vice president and report co-author. "We need to make college more affordable and reduce burdensome debt, while giving students and policymakers the information they need to make wise decisions and investments."

The highest average debt states are New Hampshire ($36,367); Pennsylvania ($35,759) and Connecticut ($35,494).

The lowest debt states are Utah ($19,975); New Mexico ($21,373) and California ($22,744).

In Michigan, the public university with the highest reported average debt is Ferris State University, where the average debt is $35,710. The lowest public university is the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where the average debt is $25,712.

In Michigan, the private college/university with the highest reported average debt is Lawrence Technological University at $40,976.

Data were not available for all the private schools. Data were also not available for the class of 2016 at Michigan State University. But in 2015, the average debt for MSU graduates was $26,091.

Twenty percent of all federal loan borrowers have defaulted on their loans, according to data released by the federal government in 2016. That translates into $121 billion of loans in default. That same data show 40% of all borrowers are not making any payments, and are in some sort of forbearance, delinquency or default.

Michigan's graduates had a default rate of 12.8% in 2015, the latest state-by-state breakdown shows.

Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @reporterdavidj.