Here's where I got the number; no citation but they do stipulate 2016 at time of graduation: https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://s

Here's where I got the number; no citation but they do stipulate 2016 at time of graduation: https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/ Here's a breakdown by state for 2015 from a more legit looking source and a report I don't have time to read; they actually put it at 30k: http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data > Tuition rates and debt loads have skyrocketed since then Total debt load across the entire population has skyrocketed in part because there are a lot more people attending college and during the recession a lot of people weren't paying off their loans, so that number could be misleading for this reason. Could be that debt load at graduation per pupil has not increased, but total debt load has skyrocketed. Tuition rates have certainly increased, but it's really hard to find data on what people are actually paying outside of borrowing rates. I graduated high school with high ACTs but an extremely low GPA and still had >66% "scholarship"... Tuition != amount paid. If you have "actual amount paid" data I'd love to see it.