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For recent graduates, their student loan debt may very well shape the rest of their lives.

Over the last decade, college-loan balances in the United States have jumped more than $833 billion to reach an all-time high of $1.4 trillion, according to a recent report by Experian.

The average outstanding balance is now $34,144, up 62 percent over the last 10 years. In addition, the percentage of borrowers who owe $50,000 or more has tripled over the same time period, according to a separate report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A college education is now the second-largest expense an individual is likely to make in a lifetime - right after purchasing a home.

Currently, about 13 percent of the country's population carries at least one student loan, Experian said, although it's increasingly common to have more. The average number of loans is 3.7 per person, up from 2.4 per person 10 years ago.

"Student loan balances are on the rise, which is a result of the increasing cost of higher education," said Michele Raneri, Experian's vice president of analytics. "I expect that the price of getting a higher education will continue to increase, so I wouldn't be surprised if the loans increase also," she said.

Still, delinquencies are down 3 percent since 2007, Raneri said, "which means that consumers are managing their student loan payments better than they have in the past," in part because they're better educated about credit in the aftermath of the Great Recession, she said.

"In most cases, higher education is worth the investment because student loans pay off in the form of higher income over time." -Rod Griffin, director of public education at Experian

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Student loan balances jump nearly 150 percent in a decade

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For recent graduates, their student loan debt may very well shape the rest of their lives. Over the last decade, college-loan balances in the United States have jumped more than $833 billion to reach an all-time high of $1.4 trillion, according to a recent report by Experian.

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Many predict that the long-lasting effects of student debt will impact the housing industry, as well as how Americans finance retirement.

The Federal Reserve Board of Washington, D.C. found that an increase in student debt has led to a decrease in home ownership, and a study from NerdWallet predicts that students who graduated from college in 2015 will have to delay retirement until the age of 75, in part because of the increasing burden of student debt.

Fortunately, there are other repayment plans that allow for borrowers to pay off their loans over a longer period of time. The Extended Repayment Plan, for example, gives borrowers up to 25 years to pay off their loans and allows them to choose for their payments to be either fixed or graduated.

Before making decisions about financing a degree, students should plan out how long it will take for them to pay off their loans. By staying organized, taking into account how much money they expect to make and keeping an eye on interest rates, graduates can make sure they pay off their loans as efficiently as possible.
Don't miss: High schoolers can now earn a $1,000 scholarship for completing a free financial literacy course

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This is the age most Americans pay off their student loans

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Many predict that the long-lasting effects of student debt will impact the housing industry, as well as how Americans finance retirement. The Federal Reserve Board of Washington, D.C.

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It's getting harder and harder to graduate college without taking on student loans.

Nearly 70% of bachelor's degree recipients leave school with debt, according to the White House, and that could have major consequences for the economy. Research indicates that the $1.2 trillion in student loan debt may be preventing Americans,from making the kinds of big purchases that drive economic growth, like house and cars, and reaching other milestones, such as having the ability to save for retirement or move out of mom and dad's basement.

This student debt crisis has become so huge it's even captured the attention of presidential candidates who are searching for ways to make college more affordable amid an environment of dwindling state funding for higher education and rising college costs. But meanwhile, the approximately 40 million Americans with student debt have to find ways to manage it.

MarketWatch and the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College convened a panel of experts recently on the Champlain College campus in Burlington, Vermont, to discuss some of the ways borrowers can make sure they stay current on their student loans.

"Trillions capture our attention," Eleanor Blayney, the consumer advocate for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, said at the panel. "This is big and the way to manage that is really to understand what you have, plan and map it out over the course of your life."

How much?

A few numbers to consider (and some that bear repeating):

The total outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. is $1.2 trillion, that's the second-highest level of consumer debt behind only mortgages. Most of that is loans held by the federal government.

About 40 million Americans hold student loans and about 70% of bachelor's degree recipients graduate with debt.

The class of 2015 graduated with $35,051 in student debt on average, according to Edvisors, a financial aid website, the most in history.

One in four student loan borrowers are either in delinquency or default on their student loans, according the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Over the past few decades a variety of factors coalesced to make student debt an almost-universal American experience. For one, state investment in higher education dwindled and colleges made up the difference by raising tuition. At the same time, financial aid hasn't kept up with tuition growth. In the 1980s, the maximum Pell Grant - the money the federal money gives to low-income students to attend college - covered more than half the cost of a four-year public school, according to The Institute for College Access and Success, a think tank focused on college affordability. Now, it covers less than one-third the cost.

A college degree has also become more necessary than ever to compete in today's workforce at the same time that Americans' wages have remained stagnant. That means more students are going to school with less money to pay for it, resulting in an uptick in student debt.

The boom in for-profit college enrollment during the Great Recession has also served to boost aggregate levels of student debt and student loan defaults. For-profit colleges have come under scrutiny from lawmakers and consumer advocates who accuse them of using inflated job placement and graduation rates to lure students into enrolling and taking on loans.

A September study published by the Brookings Institution found that a large share of the growth in the number of students struggling to pay off their loans over the past several years is tied to students borrowing to go to for-profit schools and to a smaller extent two-year community college.

Other, factors likely also play a role in the growth of student debt. Many have blamed the uptick in college costs and therefore student debt on administrative bloat, the idea that colleges are spending more on nonacademic staff and facilities. In addition, many 17-year-olds likely don't understand what owing tens of thousands of dollars in loans will mean after they graduate.

"What a lot of students don't understand is that student debt is an investment in your future," John Petellier, the head of the Center for Financial Literacy and one of the panelists, said in a separate interview. "A perfect example of what I think is missing at a lot of high schools is one of the key topics in financial literacy, understanding the connection between career and income." A better sense of that relationship could help students make more informed decisions about whether a college or career path is worth the debt, he said.

Even though we've gotten to the point where a large share of Americans have a personal connection to student debt, the experience is felt differently by different people. For one, though it might seem counterintuitive, borrowers with smaller debts are actually more likely to struggle with their student loans than borrowers with large balances.

That's because a small debt may be a sign that the borrower didn't complete school or obtained a low-level degree that's relatively meaningless in the job market. Borrowers with high levels of debt are more likely to have taken on loans to attend graduate school that will pay off in the labor market, allowing them to earn enough to pay off their loans. Just 3% of borrowers with a graduate degree defaulted on their student debts, according to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Borrowers' experience with debt also varies by race and gender. African-American borrowers are more likely to take on loans for college and tend to borrow more, largely because the historical gap in wealth between black and white households means that black students have fewer resources to draw to pay for school. And because women earn less than men on average, they have less money to draw from to pay back their student loans.

Stagnant wage growth also plays a role.

Student loans can also have different consequences depending on age. While the debts may prevent younger borrowers from buying a home, a car or reaching other economic milestones, older borrowers are at risk of losing their retirement benefits. About 36,000 Americans lost a portion of their Social Security check in 2013 due to an unpaid federal student loan, according to the Government Accountability Office.

But regardless of life stage, size of loan, level of degree and other factors, student debt is a factor often in the back of borrowers' minds.

"It sticks with you every day," Ian Foss, a policy liaison at Federal Student Aid, told the panel.

Check out these related stories:

How to manage your student loans while you're still in school

How to manage your student loans after you graduate

How and when to consolidate your student loans

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By It's getting harder and harder to graduate college without taking on student loans. Nearly 70% of bachelor's degree recipients leave school with debt, according to the White House, and that could have major consequences for the economy.

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CLOSE

It was big news when outstanding student loan debt surpassed credit card debt and then later exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. That shocking statistic keeps climbing, with no sign of slowing down: Americans now have more than $1.4 trillion in unpaid education debt, according to the Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, college-bound kids and their families try to avoid going into debt by heeding advice like "save more," "apply for scholarships" or "go to a cheaper school." Of course, none of those address the major issue of rising costs that have far outpaced wage growth.

It's smart to avoid student loan debt if you can, because those loans affect your credit and your financial future. (You can see how much by checking your free credit scores on Credit.com.) However, strategically choosing a school isn't quite as straightforward as comparing tuition and fees.

One thing you can do is check out an institution's net price calculator, which should be on its website, to see how much a student like you would pay after grants and scholarships. Another thing you can do is look at how much student loan debt recent grads ended up with. (You can read more about options for repaying your student loans here.)

Where is student loan debt the lowest?

The response to that question is a little trickier to figure out, but organizations like The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) have compiled such data to help. According to their Project on Student Debt, 68% of 2015 bachelor's degree recipients graduated with student loan debt. The average was $30,100 per borrower.

TICAS put together their project based on student loan debt figures from the "Common Data Set," a survey of colleges used by college guide publishers. The colleges voluntarily self-report their data, which presents problems.

"Colleges that accurately calculate and report each year's debt figures rightfully complain that other colleges may have students with higher average debt but fail to update their figures, under-report actual debt levels, or never report figures at all," reads the methodology for the Project on Student Debt. "Additionally, very few for-profit colleges report debt data through CDS, and national data show that borrowing levels at for-profit colleges are, on average, much higher than borrowing levels at other types of colleges."

Student loan debt by state

For students who earned bachelor's degrees in 2015, the most recent year for which data were available, TICAS determined the average student loan debt in each state by using data from 1,116 colleges. For comparison, there are more than 3,000 four-year institutions in the U.S.

Beyond that, the data were limited to bachelor's degree recipients, meaning those who had debt but lacked a degree weren't included, and if a student acquired debt at a different school before transferring to the one where they graduated, those numbers weren't included in the totals. Still, as TICAS notes in the methodology for the Project on Student Debt, "CDS data are still useful for illustrating the variations in student debt across states and colleges."

Here's a state-by-state breakdown of the average student loan debt, from lowest to highest, for the class of 2015. The Project on Student Debt also lists student-loan-debt data by school. (Note: North Dakota is not included in this list, as TICAS did not include states where useable data reflected less than 30% of the state's bachelor's degree recipients in 2015.)
Utah New Mexico Wyoming Florida Hawaii Nevada Arizona Washington Oklahoma North Carolina Colorado Arkansas Tennessee Alaska Nebraska Montana Louisiana Kentucky Texas Missouri Idaho Maryland Oregon West Virginia Virginia You can see the average debt in the rest of the states on Credit.com. More from Credit.com This article originally appeared on Credit.com. Christine DiGangi is Deputy Managing Editor - Engagement for Credit.com, covering a variety of personal finance topics. Her writing has been featured on USA Today, MSN, Yahoo! Finance and The New York Times International Weekly, among other outlets. More by Christine DiGangi
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The average student loan debt in every state

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CLOSE It was big news when outstanding student loan debt surpassed credit card debt and then later exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. That shocking statistic keeps climbing, with no sign of slowing down: Americans now have more than $1.4 trillion in unpaid education debt, according to the Federal Reserve.

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A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2021

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It’s 2021, and Americans are as burdened by student loan debt as ever. Here’s a deep dive into the often shocking U.S. student loan debt statistics.

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A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2021