<p>What exactly does this mean? Does it mean average total amount of what a student owes at the end of 4 years?</p>
<p>If one college has an average cumulative indebtedness of $16,000 and another has $24,000,
does this mean that the former gives out more financial assistance?</p>
<p>These figure are reported on the common data set by each college and cumulative indebtedness is, imo, one of the least useful statisics for individuals. The instruction for this line is:</p>
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<p>You’ll see that it doesn’t include Parent Plus loans or private loans. It may not mean anything about the FA policies of a given school, except for those few that guarantee to meet need without loans. For example, a school may have a higher cumulative indebtedness because they have higher costs or more lower income students. A much more useful statistic on the common data set is the average percent of need met. That will tell you the following:</p>
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<p>I found many schools as stated with more lower income students have higher indebtedness. Yale has 13,000 I think, but they have a lot of higher income students, and although don’t figure loans in the calculations, students do take them out. Other schools like Providence it’s 33.000…they have aid but more students take out loans. Some parents can afford to take out more or have saved more, but that doesn’t mean the college gave them more and as Sk8rmom said, they don’t count parent loans.</p>