About 55 percent of Colorado’s college graduates last year left school with student loan debt, and the average balance they carried was $22,017, according to a report Thursday from Project on Student Debt at the Institute for College Access & Success.
Student loan balances are up 5.5 percent in Colorado and 5.2 percent nationally from the 2009 averages.
Colorado students are graduating with slightly less debt than the national average of $25,200.
“Student debt continues to rise, but debt levels vary tremendously from school to school and state to state,” said report author Matthew Reed.
Nationally, graduates faced one of the worst job markets on record last year. The average unemployment rate for 20 to 24 years old was 9.1 percent.
But that bad economy also appears to have pushed down household incomes, leaving more students eligible for financial aid, Reed said.
That could explain why student loan debt didn’t grow as rapidly as some had predicted.
College students in New Hampshire and Maine graduated with the most debt, while students in Utah and Hawaii were the least indebted.
The survey was based on more than 1,000 colleges, accounting for about half of institutions and 75 percent of the students who graduated last year.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or
