The most important fact about student debt, explained in 2 maps

The student debt problem in the US is really two problems. The first is that a college degree is more expensive than it used to be, and students are graduating with higher debt loads than ever. The second is that some students are struggling to pay back their debt.

But those problems don't affect the same people. This is obvious in a new, detailed set of interactive maps from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, based on data from Experian, showing student loan balances, median incomes, and delinquency by zip code.

When you look at individual states or metropolitan areas, you see that the zip codes with high average loan balances aren't the same as those where delinquency is high. In fact, they're almost reversed. Here are the loan balances around Washington, DC, where a darker color indicates a higher balance:

Mapping Student Debt

And here are the delinquencies. A darker shade indicates more people are delinquent:

Mapping Student Debt

The highest loan balances are in some of the city's wealthiest areas — its northwest side and suburbs, home to doctors, lawyers, and government officials. The poorer southeast quadrant and the zip codes of southeast Maryland don't have the high loan balances that come with residents with graduate degrees. But the ones who have loans in those areas really are struggling.

The same pattern of high balances not matching high delinquency rates shows up in other states and cities across the country.

This contradiction, that the people who borrow the most in student loans often end up doing fine, makes it hard to create a sensible student loan policy. Many people think of the student loan problem as all about balances. But it's really about the hidden, struggling borrowers, whose inability to pay back their loans can follow them for life.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via