Ohio Student Loan Debt and Financial Aid Statistics
Federal student loan debt statistics in Ohio
- Ohio residents owe a total of $62.3 billion in student loan debts
- This is the 7th largest total debt of all 50 states plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico
- And the average debt per borrower of $34,721 is the 26th largest average student debt per borrower in the country – $3,066 below the national average
- A total of 1.794 million people in Ohio hold student debt making Ohio the state with the sixth-highest number of borrowers in the country.
- This is only 15.23% of the population of Ohio – making Ohio the state with the 3rd most student loan borrowers per capita behind only DC and Georgia
- Of these borrowers, 51.20% are under the age of 35.
How much student loan debt does the average Ohio resident have?
- The average student loan debt for borrowers who are Ohio residents is $37,757
- This makes Ohio the state with the 7th-largest average student loan debt
- The average student debt in Ohio is almost exactly the national average of $37,787
- Within this average, the amount owed by Ohio residents varies greatly:
- 16.10% of borrowers owe less than $5k
- 22.20% of borrowers owe between $20k and $40k
- 1.60% of borrowers owe more than $200k
How much do Ohio residents borrow each year?
- 42.50% of Ohio undergraduate students take out federal student loans – this is the 10th highest in the country
- For those at 2-year colleges, 28.10% of students chose to take student loans – that’s 14th in the country
- They were approved to get $5,095 per year on average
- This is the 36th most per student at 2-year colleges of any state
- Even more students at 4-year schools take out student loans – 47.70% receive student loans
- This is 20th most out of the 50 states and DC.
- These students are awarded $6,611 per year on average – ranking 36th in the country.
State-level financial aid for students in Ohio
- Ohio is the state that spends the 23rd most state funds on financial aid for students
- In total, Ohio spends $136.4 million on state-level financial aid programs per year — roughly similar to Massachusetts and Connecticut
- This works out at around 0.34% of the gross state product (GSP)
- While Ohio has the nation’s 23rd largest budget for student financial aid, it only ranks 39th as a percentage of GSP
- This works out at around $347 per undergraduate student in the state – the 37th most of any state in the country
- Just over $94.3 million is distributed to students in the form of grants meaning that none of this amount is repaid.
- The remaining $42.1 million is distributed between some other programs – some of which may be due to be repaid.