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As of 2016, median student debt increased 163% (adjusted for inflation) over 25 years. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/3-charts-student-debt-crisis_us_56b

• Alex3917 8y ago
  Hmm. The collegeboard numbers are significantly different than that: https://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-tables/cumulative-debt-bachelor-degree-recipients-four-year-institutions-over-time https://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-tables/c... E.g. Collegeboard has the average debt per graduate being $12,300 in 2000-01, whereas your source has it as being $22,500ish the same year. Maybe your numbers are including for-profit colleges? (Which isn't really appropriate, since they were very uncommon in 1990.)
  • mercutio2 8y ago
    Huge numbers of people don’t graduate, and the people who don’t graduate are more likely to struggle to pay down their debts, so they might have higher debt burdens. Also, why in the world would one want to exclude for-profit colleges? Kids get told to go to college, and the least qualified kids go to for-profit colleges. Excluding this group of students seems like cherry picking, and it really doesn’t seem reflective of the national story.