For new graduates entering the workforce, student debt is still a major cause of financial stress.
The average student debt per borrower for the Class of 2016 is $27,975, according to LendEDU’s second annual Student Loan Debt by School by State report. That number is actually down 1.5 percent from 2015, but it isn’t quite enough to lift the stress from graduates starting their careers with significant student debt.
The five states with the highest average student debt per borrower are probably not what you expect. Most of them are on the East Coast, and for all of them, the proportion of graduates who carry student loan debt is 60 percent or higher — some even reaching as high as 75 percent. Take a look:
- Pennsylvania
($35,185 average debt per borrower, 69 percent of grads have student debt) - New Hampshire
($35,143 average debt per borrower, 75 percent of grads have debt) - Delaware
($33,650 average debt per borrower, 63 percent of grads have debt) - Connecticut
($32,326 average debt per borrower, 60 percent of grads have debt) - South Dakota
($31,518 average debt per borrower, 75 percent of grads have debt)
It would be easy for employers to read the headline “student debt is down” and think of it as good news — and it is. But looking more closely at the numbers, it’s clear that student debt is a serious problem that’s not going away anytime soon. Shouldering the burden of student debt impacts your employees’ stress levels — and overall well-being — every single day.
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