by our College Data Analytics TeamHere you will find what students actually borrow to attend Maine College of Art & Design— how much they borrow, how that debt is spread across the student body, and what it costs to pay back. All figures come from the U.S. Department of Education and IPEDS.
Looking at the entering class at Maine College of Art, 72% of incoming students take out a loan to help cover first-year costs, averaging $16,616 each — a figure that counts both private and federal student loans.
The typical federal loan comes to $5,512. 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.
Among all degree-seeking undergrads at Maine College of Art, 69% finance part of their studies with federal loans, with a mean of $6,690 annually. That amounts to 21.4% higher than the $5,512 borrowed by freshmen.
Repeating that yearly amount projects to about $13,380 by year two and around $26,760 by the fourth year. These projections assume the same federal borrowing each year and exclude private and Parent PLUS loans.
| Undergraduate federal borrowing | Value |
|---|---|
| Share using federal loans | 69% |
| Average federal loan per year | $6,690 |
| Undergraduates with a federal loan | 287 |
| Total federal loans (one year) | $1,920,107 |
The middle borrower at Maine College of Art owes $19,000 in federal borrowing.
| Borrower group | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| All federal borrowers | $19,000 |
| Students who completed (graduates) | $27,000 |
| Students who withdrew | $5,500 |
Debt carried by students who withdrew is a key risk signal — these borrowers owe money without having earned the credential.
Half of all borrowers fall between the 25th and 75th percentiles shown below for Maine College of Art.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $3,750 |
| 25th percentile | $5,500 |
| 75th percentile | $27,000 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $31,000 |
The gap between the 10th and 90th percentile is the clearest single measure of how widely borrowing varies at Maine College of Art.
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 Maine College of Art.
| Group | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| All borrowers | 116 | $34,824 |
| Completed (graduates) | 75 | $40,372 |
| Did not complete | 41 | $26,529 |
On a standard 10-year plan, the median completing borrower would pay about $480.07/mo.
These figures turn the debt totals into a monthly repayment picture for Maine College of Art.
Defaulting means failing to repay a federal student loan, which carries serious credit consequences. The official Department of Education two-year default rate for Maine College of Art appears below.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 2.8% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 107 |
The cohort default rate tracks borrowers who entered repayment in a given year and defaulted within the two-year measurement window.
Borrowing varies by family income, by first-generation status, and by dependency status.
Median Debt by Income Bracket
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $22,824 |
| Middle income | $17,002 |
| High income | $19,500 |
First-Gen vs Continuing-Gen Borrowing
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $16,000 |
| Continuing-generation students | $19,750 |
Dependency-Status Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $18,500 |
| Independent students | $25,000 |
The Department of Education computes gap indicators that show how borrowing differs between student groups at Maine College of Art.
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
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.