by our College Data Analytics TeamBelow is federal data on the loans students use to pay for University of the Incarnate Word: median debt, the percentile spread, total borrowing including PLUS loans, and the cost to repay. These figures are reported by the Department of Education and IPEDS.
For incoming students at UIW, 94% of incoming students take out a loan to help cover first-year costs, for an average of $6,831 each, across private and federal loan sources.
The average federally funded loan is $6,301. This reaches or tops the $5,500 first-year federal borrowing cap for a typical dependent student. Remember the all-undergraduate figures below leave out private loans, so they will look lower than this private-plus-federal freshman amount.
Counting every undergraduate at UIW, 50% finance part of their studies with federal loans, averaging $6,939 per year. This works out to 10.1% greater than the freshman federal average of $6,301.
Borrowing the same amount each year would add up to roughly $13,878 in two years and roughly $27,756 over four years. These figures assume identical federal borrowing each year and omit private and Parent PLUS loans.Undergraduate federal borrowing Value Share using federal loans 50% Average federal loan per year $6,939 Undergraduates with a federal loan 2,295 Total federal loans (one year) $15,925,624
Graduating and withdrawing students at UIW carry a median federal debt of $21,231 in federal student loans.Borrower group Median federal debt All federal borrowers $21,231 Students who completed (graduates) $27,000 Students who withdrew $10,512
The figure for students who withdrew is worth watching: debt without a completed credential is the hardest to repay.
Looking only at the median is misleading — these four percentiles describe the full debt distribution for borrowers at UIW.Percentile Cumulative Federal Debt 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) $4,750 25th percentile $9,029 75th percentile $31,000 90th percentile (highest-debt students) $42,056
How wide this percentile range is tells you how much borrowing varies across students at UIW.
The figures above count only the students own federal loans. Adding PLUS loans (borrowed by parents or graduate students) gives a fuller picture of total borrowing at UIW.Group Borrowers Median debt incl. PLUS All borrowers 1128 $20,871 Completed (graduates) 699 $25,775 Did not complete 429 $16,437
On a standard 10-year plan, the median completing borrower would pay about $306.49/mo.
Federal data lets us separate Stafford borrowers from the rest at UIW.
Any-Stafford BorrowersCohort Borrowers Median debt incl. PLUS Used a Stafford loan 1101 $20,790 No Stafford loan 27 $28,154
Stafford This Year vs NotCohort Borrowers Median debt incl. PLUS Stafford loan this year 946 $23,381 No Stafford loan this year 182 $13,240
Repayment burden translates the debt figures into what a borrower actually pays each month. UIW.
A loan default — failing to keep up with federal student-loan payments — is one of the worst financial outcomes a borrower can face. The federal two-year cohort default rate for UIW appears below.Metric Value 2-year cohort default rate 6.9% Borrowers in the cohort 1768
A lower default rate generally signals that graduates earn enough to manage their loan payments.
The breakdowns below show median federal debt by income, first-generation status, and dependency.
Median Debt by Income BracketIncome tier Median federal debt Low income $22,937 Middle income $21,500 High income $18,832
By First-Generation StatusCohort Median federal debt First-generation students $21,500 Continuing-generation students $19,500
By Dependency StatusCohort Median federal debt Dependent students $19,500 Independent students $24,166
These pre-calculated indicators summarize the borrowing gaps between cohorts at UIW.
The Difference Between Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans
Unsubsidized federal student loans accrue interest every month — even while you are still enrolled. Unless you pay that interest as it builds, the balance you owe at graduation can be noticeably higher than the amount you originally borrowed.
Did You Know?
Unlike most other debt, federal student loans generally survive bankruptcy — and unpaid balances can lead to wage garnishment — so borrow only what you truly need.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.