Ever wonder how much debt you can expect to be in upon graduation? Well, the schools publish this data. However, you should keep in mind that just because a school has a low average total indebtedness of graduates doesn’t necessarily mean that you are likely to get more financial aid. It could just be the case that their students are less inclined to borrow because they come from wealthier families (such as Princeton, number 1). On the other hand, when taken in conjunction with some other variables, we can get a good picture of how much debt you can expect to graduate with.
Below are the top 20 schools with the lowest average total indebtedness of the 2006 graduating class (most recent Common Data Set information available):
School NameAverage Total Indebtedness (2006)1) Princeton University$4,9652) California Institute of Technology$5,1563) Harvard University$9,7174) University of California–Irvine$12,0745) Yale University$13,3446) University of Georgia$13,4787) Brigham Young University–Provo$13,7148) University of California–Davis$13,8359) Tufts University$14,20010) University of California–Santa Cruz$14,38111) University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill$14,48712) North Carolina State University–Raleigh$14,71913) University of California–Berkeley$14,75114) College of William and Mary$14,77015) SUNY–Stony Brook$14,79916) University of Florida$15,04517) SUNY–Binghamton$15,16718) University of California–San Diego$15,17019) University of Pittsburgh$15,33120) University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign$15,413
