"About three-fourths of students who attend four-year colleges graduate with loan debt. That’s up from about half of students three decades ago.
Whether students have debt — and how much — depends greatly on the school they attend. Graduates of private colleges, for instance, are more likely than those from public institutions to have debt. Students who attend wealthy selective colleges — some of which cover the full cost of attendance for financially needy students — are less likely to have debt than those who attend expensive lower-tier colleges." …