High schoolers understand that they may have to rely on student debt to make a college degree accessible, but they’re still underestimating just how big a role loans play.
Students anticipate graduating with about $17,000 in loans, according to Fidelity’s newly released 2025 College Savings and Student Debt study. The actual amount a typical student borrows varies a bit depending on which source you look at. But it’s safe to say it’s much higher — almost double — what students in this survey are expecting.
For example, The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS), using government statistics from 2020, reports that 61% of students at four-year public colleges borrowed for their degree, with the average at graduation being $27,470. At private four-year colleges, 67% of students had debt, graduating with an average of $33,673. The averages are based on data reported in the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, which is conducted every four years.
The student debt knowledge gap, as Fidelity dubs it, also exists with parents, who reported expecting students to owe $16,000 after graduation. As for how much parents will take on for their students’ college education, the estimates were similarly unrealistically low. Students expected their parents to borrow about $13,000; parents expected to borrow $15,000. In reality, parent debt has surged over the past decade or so. As of 2022, the average parent PLUS debt burden topped $29,000, according to Federal Student Aid.
It’s not clear how students and parents came to their estimates. The survey reports that more than half of respondents said they “used their own best guess.” The results are based on a survey of 2,008 respondents who were either in grades 10 to 12 of high school or were the parents of a student in those grades.
Because education data, including student loan statistics, tends to lag, it’s possible that the numbers for currently enrolled college students will show a decline in borrowing. Results for the 2024 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study haven’t been released yet. But it’s highly unlikely the drop will be steep enough to match what respondents in the Fidelity survey are expecting. After increasing steadily between 2000 and 2012, the average borrowing load has remained fairly constant over the past several years. In the 2012 iteration of the national student aid study, for example, the overall average for bachelor’s degree recipients from all types of colleges was $29,412. Eight years later, in the 2020 version, that figure had increased by just $1,000.
Cost continues to play a major role in students’ college plans
Beyond their expectations around student loans, the Fidelity survey also asked students and parents about college costs more generally. Forty-seven percent of students said cost is “most important” when choosing whether and where to enroll — up from 40% just four years ago. The emphasis on tuition prices is even higher as students get closer to applying to college: 54% of seniors named it the most important consideration.
Those findings match other recent surveys that have shown how cost is one of the primary determinants of students’ postsecondary plans. In Sallie Mae’s latest How America Pays for College report, which also came out this month, respondents named proximity to home, affordability and academic offerings as the three top factors driving their decision about where to attend. Nearly 80% of families said they’d eliminated at least one college because of cost, and 72% said they’d rather take on loans than risk not attending. Among those who did borrow, 35% said access to student loans allowed them to consider more expensive schools.
One bright spot in both surveys? Parents and students are communicating about the cost of college and what they can afford. More than two-thirds of parents and students in Fidelity’s survey said they’ve discussed how they’ll finance a college degree. That’s often experts’ first piece of advice — to talk early about how much your family can afford to spend out of pocket so students can look for colleges in their budget. As the study authors put it, the discussions help families focus on “realistic expectations and strategies for managing the cost of college.”
Still, the authors of the Sallie Mae report stress that there’s room for improvement. While six in 10 families said they’d made a plan for paying for a bachelor’s degree before they enrolled, fewer families reported talking about specifics. For example, 40% discussed typical starting salaries in their field of study — a key component to figuring out how much you can afford to borrow — and less than a third talked about how much they’re willing to borrow or who would be responsible for paying back student loans.
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