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From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Many students graduate with manageable debt or no education loans, but almost 17 percent of graduates in 2008 borrowed $30,500 or more to get their bachelor’s degrees, according to a new analysis.

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A report released today by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center, also said that students who borrow the most are disproportionately black, and are more likely to have attended a private nonprofit or for-profit college than a public four-year college. But debt levels did not necessarily reflect family income.

Over all, the analysis—based on data from 2007-8 graduates in the “National Postsecondary Student Aid Study”—revealed that about two-thirds of all those who received a bachelor’s degree graduated with some amount of loan debt.

About 25 percent of all college-degree recipients graduated with at least $24,600 in debt, and 10 percent graduated with at least $39,300, says the report, “Who Borrows Most?: Bachelor’s Degree Recipients With High Levels of Student Debt.”

Borrowing by Income

A key finding by Sandy Baum and Patricia Steele, consultants to the College Board and authors of the report, was that debt levels at graduation among financially dependent students do not correlate to those students’ family income.

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