The American Council on Education (ACE) recently released a study stating that the average student acquires $17,250 in loan debt after attending a private four-year college. According to the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), of all recent graduates, over half have debts higher than lender recommendations.

Since the early 90s, the number of students taking out loans, both public and private, has been increasing. According to NASPA, in the last eight years the average cumulative federal student loan debt has almost doubled. Thanks to the current economic crisis, credit cards and the rising cost of college tuition, student loan levels cannot be expected to be curtailed anytime soon. According to ACE, 67 percent of all college students have taken out a loan, with most taking out multiple loans.

Student debt is obviously an issue that affects every student enrolled in college, but students at Macalester do have an advantage over most other private four-year colleges. According to Brian Lindeman, Director of Financial Aid, the median amount of debt that a Macalester student graduates with is roughly $15,860, with only 53% of Macalester's students taking out loans.

Macalester student's below-average debt is due mainly to one factor: the amount of money the institution gives in grants and scholarships to students. According to Lindeman, the college has settled on $15,000 as the "suggested amount of loan for each student" over the four years they are here.

In comparison to the roughly $90,000 it costs in tuition to attend Macalester for four years, the suggested $15,000 may not seem like a lot. However, considering the fact that it takes roughly five years to pay off $15,000 in loans, this is a sizeable amount of money. Multiply that $15,000 by the number of students on campus receiving aid and the number becomes quite large.

"We're estimating about $18.5 million as the total amount of grants and scholarships that Macalester will provide to students during 2002-2003," Lindeman said. That amount is distributed to roughly 70 percent of the student body.

President Michael McPherson also stressed that "the actual cost of a year at Macalester is substantially more than even full tuition." Thanks to the endowment and the gifts people—especially alumni—give, "we are able to offer students an education that costs more than they pay," McPherson added. Consequently, even students who do not receive any aid from the college are getting more than what they pay for.

The college also has a significantly larger number of financially needy students than other institutions. According to Lindeman, approximately two-thirds of the students who enrolled at Macalester in the fall of 2001 demonstrated a need for financial aid. The median number of financially needy students from other institutions in 2001, according to the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium, was only 51.5 percent.

The lower level of Macalester students' debt is also due to the availability of on-campus jobs. Macalester offers a great deal of opportunities for students to obtain work-study jobs on campus. "Even students who do not have the financial need for a work-study job can usually get one," Lindeman said. Currently there are 1,200 students working on campus. A large portion of the funding for these jobs comes from the college itself since only 25 percent of the funds used to pay for work-study come from the government.

Overall, it seems that Macalester students are fortunate. As stated above, over half of U.S. college majors graduate with debts higher than lenders recommend. Lenders usually recommend that less than eight percent of an individual's gross income should be spent on student loan repayments.

Considering the placement rates, salary rates and loan levels of Macalester students after graduation, it seems few are in risk of excessive debt. A few facts to consider from NASPA:

—Students getting engineering, nursing, special education or other technology-related degrees are generally within lender-recommended debt levels and have higher salaries.

—Students getting degrees in the arts, liberal arts and social sciences have a lot more excess debt when compared to their salaries. Art history majors face the highest debt.

—Students taking longer than five years to complete their education run up significantly higher debts, almost 60 percent more than students who finish in four years.

—African-American and Hispanic American students will graduate with more debt than a white student, while American Indian students will graduate with less debt, which can be attributed to the higher number of grants available to them.