by our College Data Analytics TeamBelow is federal data on the loans students use to pay for Grand Valley State University: median debt, the percentile spread, total borrowing including PLUS loans, and the cost to repay. All figures come from the U.S. Department of Education and IPEDS.
Looking at the entering class at GVSU, 56% of freshmen borrow to help pay for their first year, with a typical loan of $7,130 apiece. This figure includes both private and federally funded student loans.
The average federal loan is $5,270, or about 95.8% of the typical first-year dependent student borrowing cap of $5,500. Remember the all-undergraduate figures below leave out private loans, so they will look lower than this private-plus-federal freshman amount.
For undergraduates overall at GVSU, 51% use federal student loans to help pay for their education, averaging $6,412 each per year. This is 21.7% more than the $5,270 typical freshmen borrow.
Carrying that yearly figure forward comes to roughly $12,824 by year two and around $25,648 over a four-year span. These figures assume identical federal borrowing each year and omit private and Parent PLUS loans.
| Undergraduate federal borrowing | Value |
|---|---|
| Share using federal loans | 51% |
| Average federal loan per year | $6,412 |
| Undergraduates with a federal loan | 9,645 |
| Total federal loans (one year) | $61,839,091 |
The median student at GVSU borrows $19,500 in federal borrowing.
| Borrower group | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| All federal borrowers | $19,500 |
| Students who completed (graduates) | $24,500 |
| Students who withdrew | $10,915 |
Withdrawn-student debt matters because those borrowers carry the loans without the degree that helps repay them.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 GVSU.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $4,071 |
| 25th percentile | $8,258 |
| 75th percentile | $28,000 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $36,751 |
How wide this percentile range is tells you how much borrowing varies across students at GVSU.
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 GVSU.
| Group | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| All borrowers | 4773 | $20,544 |
| Completed (graduates) | 3025 | $26,392 |
| Did not complete | 1748 | $15,743 |
Completers face an estimated standard 10-year monthly payment on their PLUS-inclusive debt of roughly $313.83/mo.
Federal data lets us separate Stafford borrowers from the rest at GVSU.
Stafford vs Non-Stafford (any year)
| Cohort | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| Used a Stafford loan | 4718 | $20,659 |
| No Stafford loan | 55 | $14,739 |
Borrowers With a Stafford Loan This Year
| Cohort | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| Stafford loan this year | 4553 | $20,842 |
| No Stafford loan this year | 220 | $14,954 |
Repayment burden translates the debt figures into what a borrower actually pays each month. GVSU.
Defaulting means failing to repay a federal student loan, which carries serious credit consequences. The official Department of Education two-year default rate for GVSU appears below.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 4.2% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 5058 |
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.
Borrowing by Income Tier
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $20,785 |
| Middle income | $19,523 |
| High income | $19,245 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $20,366 |
| Continuing-generation students | $18,500 |
Dependent vs Independent Borrowers
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $19,500 |
| Independent students | $21,490 |
Federal data publishes the following gap measures for GVSU.
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.
Worth Knowing
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.