by our College Data Analytics TeamHere you will find what students actually borrow to attend Black Hawk College— how much they borrow, how that debt is spread across the student body, and what it costs to pay back. These figures are reported by the Department of Education and IPEDS.
Among first-year students at BHC, 15% of new students use loans toward freshman-year expenses, for an average of $4,773 per borrower, covering both private and federal loans.
The average federally funded loan is $4,761, or about 86.6% of the $5,500 federal limit that applies to a typical first-year dependent borrower. Bear in mind the undergraduate averages later on cover federal loans only, whereas this freshman total folds in private loans too.
Counting every undergraduate at BHC, 11% use federal student loans to help pay for their education, with a mean of $4,750 a year. That amounts to 0.2% below the $4,761 typical freshmen borrow.
Carrying that yearly figure forward comes to roughly $9,500 over two years and about $19,000 over four years. This projection keeps yearly federal borrowing flat and excludes private and Parent PLUS loans.
| Undergraduate federal borrowing | Value |
|---|---|
| Share using federal loans | 11% |
| Average federal loan per year | $4,750 |
| Undergraduates with a federal loan | 244 |
| Total federal loans (one year) | $1,158,977 |
Graduating and withdrawing students at BHC carry a median federal debt of $5,302 of cumulative federal debt.
| Borrower group | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| All federal borrowers | $5,302 |
| Students who completed (graduates) | $8,375 |
| Students who withdrew | $4,390 |
Withdrawn-student debt matters because those borrowers carry the loans without the degree that helps repay them.
Looking only at the median is misleading — these four percentiles describe the full debt distribution for borrowers at BHC.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $1,312 |
| 25th percentile | $2,175 |
| 75th percentile | $7,336 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $11,500 |
The gap between the 10th and 90th percentile is the clearest single measure of how widely borrowing varies at BHC.
Median federal debt understates the full cost when PLUS loans are included. The totals below add PLUS borrowing for BHC.
| Group | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| All borrowers | 266 | $16,423 |
| Completed (graduates) | 49 | $11,590 |
| Did not complete | 217 | $17,736 |
For students who completed, the median total debt including PLUS loans works out to a standard 10-year payment of about $137.82/mo.
Federal data lets us separate Stafford borrowers from the rest at BHC.
Current-Year Stafford Borrowers
| Cohort | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| Stafford loan this year | 60 | $9,486 |
| No Stafford loan this year | 206 | $18,980 |
Repayment burden translates the debt figures into what a borrower actually pays each month. BHC.
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 BHC follows.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 8.8% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 495 |
This rate follows a borrower cohort from the start of repayment through the two-year window the Department of Education uses.
The breakdowns below show median federal debt by income, first-generation status, and dependency.
By Family Income
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $4,316 |
| Middle income | $5,500 |
| High income | $5,500 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $5,000 |
| Continuing-generation students | $5,500 |
By Dependency Status
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $5,250 |
| Independent students | $5,677 |
Federal data publishes the following gap measures for BHC.
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.
Important to Remember
Federal student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy in all but the rarest cases, and the government can withhold part of your income or tax refund if you default.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.