Maryland college students and graduates carry more student loan debt than their peers in other states, according to a new report.
| The Top 6 |
| Maryland: $33,704 |
| Massachusetts: $33,609 |
| Illinois: $32,237 |
| New York: $32,005 |
| Georgia: $31,960 |
| New Jersey: $31,869 |
Maryland residents’ student loan debt is topping the charts — with Virginia falling close behind at seventh place — as students’ debt soars past $1 trillion for the first time nationally, according to the most recent quarterly report from Credit Karma, a consumer credit management company.
Maryland residents with outstanding student loan debt carried an average balance of $33,704 last month, compared with the national average of $29,523. Virginia’s students and graduates owed $31,704, by comparison.
Maryland’s top ranking is likely a result of the state’s large population of high-income earners, economists said.
“The families of students in Maryland are disproportionately wealthier and go to more expensive colleges than, say, students from Alabama,” said Ethan B. Cohen-Cole, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maryland.
Maryland has one of the highest average per capita incomes in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Another factor that contributes to high amounts of student debt are cuts in state appropriations for education, said Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FinAid and Fastweb, which track the student loan industry. But Maryland is well-known for spending generously for education, analysts noted.
Massachusetts and Illinois scored the second- and third-highest averages for student debt, while the lowest-ranking state was Wyoming, where students with outstanding debt owed $22,940 on average.
The new data were released as student loan debt surges above $1 trillion nationally, surpassing national totals for credit card and auto loan debt.
“As the cost of college has gone up, financial services companies have been increasingly more willing to let students take out larger and larger student loans,” Cohen-Cole said.
Because student debt is not eliminated at the time of bankruptcy, it’s a relatively safe thing to lend, he said.
Despite Maryland’s high ranking in the Credit Karma study, its average debt per student grew at a much lower rate — by roughly 5 percent — than the growth rate nationally, between the first quarter of 2012 and the previous quarter. Nationally, the student debt jumped 12.4 percent from one quarter to the next. In Virginia, the rate was slightly lower than Maryland’s, at 4.5 percent.
