Average Student Debt Climbed Higher in 2014, Study Finds

Average student-loan debt among graduates of four-year public and nonprofit private colleges who had incurred debt at the time of graduation climbed to $28,950 for the Class of 2014, up 2 percent from the Class of 2013. An annual report by the Institute for College Access and Success, released on Tuesday, found that at those colleges, 69 percent of graduating seniors had student loans, a rate that held steady from last year.

This is the institute’s 10th annual report on average student debt. The report published two years ago, on the Class of 2012, found the average debt at graduation to be $29,400. But that survey included graduates of for-profit colleges because it coincided with the periodic release of government data on those institutions.