Average debt up again for college grads

Associated Press

It’s the latest snapshot of the growing burden of student debt, and it’s another discouraging one: Two-thirds of the national college class of 2011 finished school with loan debt, and those who borrowed walked off the graduation stage owing on average $26,600 — up about 5 percent from the class before.

The latest figures are calculated in a report out today by the California-based Institute for College Access and Success and likely underestimate the problem in some ways because they don’t include most graduates of for-profit colleges.

Still, though 2011 college graduates faced an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent in 2011, even those with debt remained generally better off than those without a degree.