Is Six-Figure Student Loan Debt the Norm? - Education - GOOD

Is Six-Figure Student Loan Debt the Norm? - Education - GOOD:

Is Six-Figure Student Loan Debt the Norm?

by Liz Dwyer

With total student loan debt topping $1 trillion, extreme stories of students being crushed under the weight of six-figure debt can start to seem like the norm. But how common is it to come out of college owing over $100,000? According to some data crunching (PDF) from Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and Fastweb.com, only 0.2 percent of undergraduate students leave school owing that much or more.
Who are these 0.2 percenters? Last fall the Occupy Colleges Movement spearheaded nationwide campus protests against tuition increases at more than 100 of the nation’s public universities, but if you’re attending state school, you’re probably not accumulating over $100,000 in debt. Indeed, although selective private universities