Do grad students in the USA typically have more or less student debt than undergrads? [closed]

Question

A student advocate at my institution recently claimed that grad students have more debt than undergrads. This surprised me, because I would expect that typical grad students are the kind of student that would be able to gather more financial aid (scholarships, awards, fellowships, etc.) during their time as an undergrad than typical undergrads. Furthermore, most PhD students (and many masters students) have their tuition waived while working as a TA/RA, so they accrue little/no additional debt. Of course, this likely varies with field, too: students in STEM are more likely to have institutional funding while law or medical students often have to pay their own way.

While I don't know if the statistic I quoted was comparing undergrads who haven't yet accrued their full measure of debt to grads who have all of their undergrad debt, it begs an interesting question:

Do undergraduate students typically have more student debt than graduate students have, and (broadly) how does this vary with field of study?

The comparison ought to be made after each group graduates from their respective program, since comparing a 1st year undergraduate's debt to a 1st year PhD student's debt clearly would not be helpful.

Answer 1

I think you are underestimating the number of graduate students who do not get any form of financial support. Like you said, most students in STEM or engineering PhD programs full receive full support. PhD students in humanities/social sciences departments are less funded compared to STEM students, but at least are given tuition remissions.

On the other hand, majority of MA students in any discipline generally receives no support. Then there is MBA students, law students, doctoral residents etc. They are the ones who make up a big portion of all graduate students and most of them have to get student loan to complete their graduate programs.

For example, a typical law school graduate would end up with 60k-100k+ loans at the time they pass the bar and get a job.

Answer 2

I think it's silly to talk about cumulative debt, adding undergraduate debt to whatever a student might accrue as a grad student, and instead ask whether grad students accumulate more as grad students than undergrads do as undergrads. And the answer, I'm pretty sure, varies enormously across fields. Many students at top law schools borrow the entire cost of their education (say $220K as of a year or two ago), but they expect to earn enough to pay down that debt and make it worthwhile. Some places offer fellowships, even covering the total cost over those 3 years, to attract excellent students. But most are borrowing up to their noses. Same for med schools I imagine. In arts & sciences, students often can get fellowships or funding as research assistants or teaching assistants. When I got a PhD in computer science I didn't borrow any money as a grad student.

Bottom line: I think the typical debt load in certain fields (law, medicine, maybe business) is higher per/year than undergrads -- who generally can't borrow the entire cost -- and in others it is (close to) nonexistent.

Answer 3

While the article "The Shame of PhD Debt" does not directly answer the question of whether graduate or undergraduate students have more debt, you may well find it a worthwhile read because it explores some of the reasons for accruing significant debt in graduate programs. You may find the surveys referred to in this article especially useful for thinking about and understanding debt at all levels in higher education. These surveys contain self-reported data from graduate students across disciplines, who explain how much debt they accrued at undergraduate/graduate levels and why.

According to the data from the second survey (which I strongly encourage you to have a look at), there is great variety among amounts of debt even within fields. Although it does appear that 'hard science' types are more likely to escape both graduate and undergraduate education with less debt than arts & humanities students, I found it surprising that many of the people with zero debt were from arts, humanities, and social science fields. Also, most of the people with zero debt did not necessarily have terrific scholarships. Rather, they were independently wealthy or had a spouse/partner supporting them. Again, I suggest you look at the data, yourself. (If anyone feels so compelled, perhaps we could discuss our thoughts on the data in chat to avoid clogging the comments section.)

Note: I think it is worth pointing out that some people conceptualize time in graduate school as 'lost wages,' and if a student also has unpaid undergraduate debt, that debt continues to grow during graduate school. Lost wages and loan interest could mean that many graduate students end up with far more debt that some undergraduates, though I am sure this varies greatly by field. I cannot find a source that directly answers your original question, but according to the Institute for College Access and Success, 68% of (public/non-profit) college seniors in the U.S. left undergraduate programs with debt, with an average of $30,000. This should provide some frame of reference for thinking about the accrual of debt through undergraduate into graduate school.