by our College Data Analytics TeamThis page focuses on the debt students take on to attend Mount Holyoke College: 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.
Among first-year students at Mt. Holyoke, 49% of new students use loans toward freshman-year expenses, averaging $5,709 per student, private and federal loans combined.
The average federally funded loan is $3,789, or about 68.9% 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.
Across the full undergraduate body at Mt. Holyoke (freshmen included), 44% rely on federal student loans toward their education, at an average of $5,147 annually. This works out to 35.8% greater than the first-year federal average of $3,789.
Borrowing the same amount each year would add up to roughly $10,294 after two years and $20,588 over a four-year span. This projection keeps yearly federal borrowing flat and excludes private and Parent PLUS loans.Undergraduate federal borrowing Value Share using federal loans 44% Average federal loan per year $5,147 Undergraduates with a federal loan 958 Total federal loans (one year) $4,930,411
Graduating and withdrawing students at Mt. Holyoke carry a median federal debt of $18,258 in federal student loans.Borrower group Median federal debt All federal borrowers $18,258 Students who completed (graduates) $22,902 Students who withdrew $8,750
Withdrawn-student debt matters because those borrowers carry the loans without the degree that helps repay them.
Half of all borrowers fall between the 25th and 75th percentiles shown below for Mt. Holyoke.Percentile Cumulative Federal Debt 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) $5,500 25th percentile $11,175 75th percentile $25,875 90th percentile (highest-debt students) $30,500
The spread between the lowest- and highest-debt deciles summarizes how variable outcomes are at Mt. Holyoke.
PLUS loans — taken out by parents or graduate students — add to the total cost of attendance financed by debt at Mt. Holyoke.Group Borrowers Median debt incl. PLUS All borrowers 153 $30,018 Completed (graduates) 108 $31,129 Did not complete 45 $23,241
On a standard 10-year plan, the median completing borrower would pay about $370.16/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 Mt. Holyoke.
Stafford This Year vs NotCohort Borrowers Median debt incl. PLUS Stafford loan this year 139 — No Stafford loan this year 14 —
Repayment burden translates the debt figures into what a borrower actually pays each month. Mt. Holyoke.
Defaulting means failing to repay a federal student loan, which carries serious credit consequences. The official Department of Education two-year default rate for Mt. Holyoke appears below.Metric Value 2-year cohort default rate 4.6% Borrowers in the cohort 391
The cohort default rate tracks borrowers who entered repayment in a given year and defaulted within the two-year measurement window.
The breakdowns below show median federal debt by income, first-generation status, and dependency.
By Family IncomeIncome tier Median federal debt Low income $18,763 Middle income $19,500 High income $15,996
First-Generation ComparisonCohort Median federal debt First-generation students $19,000 Continuing-generation students $16,500
Dependency-Status ComparisonCohort Median federal debt Dependent students $18,010 Independent students $21,413
Federal data publishes the following gap measures for Mt. Holyoke.
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.
Important to Remember
Unlike most other debt, federal student loans generally survive bankruptcy — and unpaid balances can lead to wage garnishment — so borrow only what you truly need.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.