The 25 colleges where students graduate with the most debt

It's back-to-school season. Abraham Gonzalez Fernandez/Getty Images College isn't cheap. Fifteen universities have sticker prices of at least $100,000. It's no wonder that there's $1.724 trillion of federal student debt in the US. It's back-to-school season — and that means that some bright-eyed college freshmen and their proud families are getting ready to shell out six figures to attend their dream schools. Tuition prices have soared in recent decades, even as Americans have grown more skeptical of the value of a four-year degree. Still, there's a significant number of young adults in college. In 2024, 19.28 million students were enrolled in college, down from the peak of 21 million in 2010, per the Education Data Initiative . For some of those students, pursuing a degree was only possible by taking out loans, either federal or private.