by our College Data Analytics TeamBelow is federal data on the loans students use to pay for University of California College of the Law-San Francisco: median debt, the percentile spread, total borrowing including PLUS loans, and the cost to repay. The data below is drawn directly from federal sources.
Looking only at the median is misleading — these four percentiles describe the full debt distribution for borrowers at UC Hastings.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $3,000 |
| 25th percentile | $3,000 |
| 75th percentile | $8,000 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $8,000 |
How wide this percentile range is tells you how much borrowing varies across students at UC Hastings.
Median federal debt understates the full cost when PLUS loans are included. The totals below add PLUS borrowing for UC Hastings.
| Group | Borrowers | Median debt incl. PLUS |
|---|---|---|
| All borrowers | 115 | $46,346 |
These figures turn the debt totals into a monthly repayment picture for UC Hastings.
A loan default — failing to keep up with federal student-loan payments — is one of the worst financial outcomes a borrower can face. Two-year cohort default-rate data for UC Hastings follows.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 2-year cohort default rate | 0.9% |
| Borrowers in the cohort | 417 |
This rate follows a borrower cohort from the start of repayment through the two-year window the Department of Education uses.
Subsidized vs. 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
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.