Really illuminating NY Times article titled "The Typical College Student Is Not Who You Think", which breaks down the numbers of the experience of most college students and student loan borrowers. (Edit: Automod removed my comment that shared the gift-link, so I am sharing the paywall link in the comments for those who have a NYT subscription):
"As a fight over the future of elite higher education consumes university leaders and politicians, most college students live in a very different world with very different challenges."
43 percent of undergraduates attend community college
About 75 percent of community college students are enrolled part time
20 percent of all undergraduate students are parents
1.4 million undergraduate students with children are single mothers
10.3 million students take at least some classes online
26 percent of students take classes exclusively online
25 percent of all undergraduate students live with their parents
The average student is $19,000 in debt
10.8 million students owe more than $44,000
Two-thirds of student loan debt belong to women
About a third of all undergraduate students received a Pell Grant
41 million people attended college but never graduated
"The Typical College Student Is Not Who You Think"
byu/ResearcherComplex165 inStudentLoans
Posted by ResearcherComplex165
2 Comments
Automod removed my comment that shared the gift-link, so I am sharing the paywall link in the comments for those who have a NYT subscription:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/us/us-typical-college-student.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/us/us-typical-college-student.html)
I wonder if the average student is in 19k debt is talking on just student not just graduates as the average student debt is 30k last I saw.
If it’s the average student not graduate that stat is useless as it’s just averaging out the freshmen with little debt and the seniors with a lot.