by our College Data Analytics TeamThis page focuses on the debt students take on to attend Sinclair Community College— how much they borrow, how that debt is spread across the student body, and what it costs to pay back. These figures are reported by the Department of Education and IPEDS.
Looking at the entering class at Sinclair Community College, 32% of new students use loans toward freshman-year expenses, with a typical loan of $4,318 per student, private and federal loans combined.
Federal loans alone average $4,231, or about 76.9% of the $5,500 cap on first-year federal borrowing for the typical dependent student. Keep in mind the all-undergraduate averages further down count federal loans only, unlike this private-plus-federal freshman figure.
Looking at all undergraduates at Sinclair Community College, freshmen included, 29% use federal student loans to help pay for their education, with a mean of $4,566 a year. That is 7.9% greater than the $4,231 typical freshmen borrow.
Carrying that yearly figure forward comes to roughly $9,132 by year two and around $18,264 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 | 29% |
| Average federal loan per year | $4,566 |
| Undergraduates with a federal loan | 3,670 |
| Total federal loans (one year) | $16,758,129 |
The median student at Sinclair Community College borrows $5,500 in federal student loans.
| Borrower group | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| All federal borrowers | $5,500 |
| Students who completed (graduates) | $12,000 |
| Students who withdrew | $5,500 |
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 Sinclair Community College.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $1,476 |
| 25th percentile | $2,750 |
| 75th percentile | $10,867 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $18,445 |
The gap between the 10th and 90th percentile is the clearest single measure of how widely borrowing varies at Sinclair Community College.
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 Sinclair Community College.
| Group | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| All borrowers | 1610 | $12,632 |
| Completed (graduates) | 323 | $11,377 |
| Did not complete | 1287 | $13,000 |
On a standard 10-year plan, the median completing borrower would pay about $135.28/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 Sinclair Community College.
Stafford vs Non-Stafford (any year)
| Cohort | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| Used a Stafford loan | 1583 | $12,617 |
| No Stafford loan | 27 | $12,936 |
Borrowers With a Stafford Loan This Year
| Cohort | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| Stafford loan this year | 690 | $10,036 |
| No Stafford loan this year | 920 | $15,178 |
Repayment burden translates the debt figures into what a borrower actually pays each month. Sinclair Community College.
Defaulting means failing to repay a federal student loan, which carries serious credit consequences. The federal two-year cohort default rate for Sinclair Community College appears below.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 19.7% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 5454 |
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.
Median Debt by Income Bracket
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $5,500 |
| Middle income | $5,500 |
| High income | $5,500 |
First-Gen vs Continuing-Gen Borrowing
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $5,500 |
| Continuing-generation students | $5,500 |
Dependency-Status Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $5,500 |
| Independent students | $6,178 |
Federal data publishes the following gap measures for Sinclair Community College.
Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans
Unsubsidized federal student loans accrue interest every month — even while you are still enrolled. Unless you pay that interest as it builds, the balance you owe at graduation can be noticeably higher than the amount you originally borrowed.
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.