by our College Data Analytics TeamHere you will find what students actually borrow to attend Christian Brothers University: 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.
At Christian Brothers specifically, 33% of first-year students take on loan debt, at roughly $8,598 apiece. This figure includes both private and federally funded student loans.
Federal loans alone average $7,556. 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 Christian Brothers, 37% borrow through federal student loan programs, with a mean of $8,848 each per year. That is 17.1% more than the $7,556 freshmen take on.
Repeating that yearly amount projects to about $17,696 by year two and around $35,392 after four. This projection keeps yearly federal borrowing flat and excludes private and Parent PLUS loans.
| Undergraduate federal borrowing | Value |
|---|---|
| Share using federal loans | 37% |
| Average federal loan per year | $8,848 |
| Undergraduates with a federal loan | 350 |
| Total federal loans (one year) | $3,096,661 |
The middle borrower at Christian Brothers owes $17,589 in federal borrowing.
| Borrower group | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| All federal borrowers | $17,589 |
| Students who completed (graduates) | $27,000 |
| Students who withdrew | $8,750 |
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 Christian Brothers.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $4,750 |
| 25th percentile | $6,500 |
| 75th percentile | $28,000 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $39,360 |
The gap between the 10th and 90th percentile is the clearest single measure of how widely borrowing varies at Christian Brothers.
Median federal debt understates the full cost when PLUS loans are included. The totals below add PLUS borrowing for Christian Brothers.
| Group | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| All borrowers | 191 | $15,871 |
| Completed (graduates) | 101 | $20,923 |
| Did not complete | 90 | $13,967 |
Completers face an estimated standard 10-year monthly payment on their PLUS-inclusive debt of roughly $248.8/mo.
Stafford loans are the federal direct-loan program most undergraduates use. The breakdown below separates borrowers who used Stafford loans from those who did not at Christian Brothers.
Current-Year Stafford Borrowers
| Cohort | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| Stafford loan this year | 170 | $17,505 |
| No Stafford loan this year | 21 | $11,989 |
These figures turn the debt totals into a monthly repayment picture for Christian Brothers.
The default rate measures how many borrowers fall behind and ultimately fail to repay their federal loans. The federal two-year cohort default rate for Christian Brothers follows.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 5.2% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 511 |
This rate follows a borrower cohort from the start of repayment through the two-year window the Department of Education uses.
Borrowing varies by family income, by first-generation status, and by dependency status.
By Family Income
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $19,715 |
| Middle income | $15,625 |
| High income | $17,500 |
By First-Generation Status
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $15,933 |
| Continuing-generation students | $19,500 |
Dependency-Status Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $16,000 |
| Independent students | $20,654 |
The Department of Education computes gap indicators that show how borrowing differs between student groups at Christian Brothers.
The Difference Between Subsidized and 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.
Did You Know?
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.