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Withdrawn-student debt matters because those borrowers carry the loans without the degree that helps repay them.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 Not
| Cohort | 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 Income
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $18,763 |
| Middle income | $19,500 |
| High income | $15,996 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $19,000 |
| Continuing-generation students | $16,500 |
Dependency-Status Comparison
| Cohort | 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.