by our College Data Analytics TeamThis page focuses on the debt students take on to attend American Trade School: median debt, the percentile spread, total borrowing including PLUS loans, and the cost to repay. The data below is drawn directly from federal sources.
Among first-year students at American Trade School, 75% of new students use loans toward freshman-year expenses, for an average of $9,409 per student, private and federal loans combined.
Federal loans alone average $9,409. That sits at or beyond the $5,500 first-year federal limit 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.
Looking at all undergraduates at American Trade School, freshmen included, 74% rely on federal student loans toward their education, for a typical $10,088 per year. It comes to 7.2% greater than the freshman federal average of $9,409.
Borrowing at that rate every year works out to about $20,176 across two years and $40,352 over a four-year span. This assumes steady federal borrowing and leaves out private and Parent PLUS loans.
| Undergraduate federal borrowing | Value |
|---|---|
| Share using federal loans | 74% |
| Average federal loan per year | $10,088 |
| Undergraduates with a federal loan | 148 |
| Total federal loans (one year) | $1,493,095 |
The median hides the spread, so the percentiles below show cumulative federal debt at four points in the distribution for American Trade School.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $2,507 |
| 25th percentile | $6,320 |
| 75th percentile | $14,922 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $18,252 |
How wide this percentile range is tells you how much borrowing varies across students at American Trade School.
These figures turn the debt totals into a monthly repayment picture for American Trade School.
A loan default — failing to keep up with federal student-loan payments — is one of the worst financial outcomes a borrower can face. Two-year cohort default-rate data for American Trade School is shown below.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 16.6% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 6 |
This rate follows a borrower cohort from the start of repayment through the two-year window the Department of Education uses.
Subsidized vs. Unsubsidized Loans
Subsidized loans pause interest while you are in school; unsubsidized loans do not. That difference compounds over four years, so the type of loan you take matters as much as the amount.
Worth Knowing
Declaring bankruptcy does not erase federal student loan debt. If you stop paying, the federal government can garnish a portion of your wages until the loans are repaid.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.