Where Data Tells the Story
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America's Student Debt Burden, Mapped
The United States carries $1.83 trillion in federal student loan debt, with the average borrower owing $39,500, a figure that masks striking regional variation across the country.
Washington D.C. sits at the extreme, with borrowers carrying an average of $54,600, nearly double that of North Dakota, where debt per borrower is the lowest in the nation at $29,100. The gap reflects the capital's concentration of graduate and professional degree holders, whose longer and more expensive programmes of study push balances well above the national norm.
The East Coast emerges as a region of particular strain. Maryland ($43,800), Georgia ($42,200) and Virginia ($40,300) all rank among the heaviest-burdened states, suggesting that higher education costs in the region have outpaced the financial capacity of many of its students. Florida ($39,600) and the Carolinas sit close to the national average, while the broader Southeast shows consistently darker shading across the map. The Midwest and Mountain West tell a different story. A band of lighter states stretches from the Dakotas through Wyoming and into the Plains, where debt loads generally fall between $29,000 and $33,000. These states also tend to have lower costs of living.
The political salience of these figures is unlikely to diminish. With total federal exposure at $1.83 trillion, student debt remains one of the largest contingent liabilities on the government's books and one with no obvious resolution in sight.