Recent increases in average debt among professional degree program graduates reflect a combination of several factors, including increases in professional degree fees that have occurred since 2002-03 and increased access to, and awareness of, federal student loan programs.

In general, higher levels of student debt are found in disciplines with high levels of potential earnings (e.g., law, medicine, dentistry and optometry).

The percentage of professional degree students graduating with debt and average student debt levels are two, among several other, affordability indicators that the University is monitoring on an ongoing basis.

Source: UCOP Corporate Student System.

Figures represent the average cumulative UC borrowing of professional degree recipients who took out at least one student loan while they were enrolled at UC. Students who also earned other graduate degrees at UC were excluded, as were student who received doctoral degrees in professional disciplines. Professional disciplines were defined as those in two-digit Classification of Instruction Programs (CIP) codes 04, 13, 22, 25, 39, 44, 51, 52 or four-digit CIP code 09.04.

Disciplinary categories were also based on CIP codes as listed below.

• Law: 22
• Medicine: 51.1201, 51.1901
• Other Health: other 51 codes
• Business: 52
• Education: 13
• Other Disciplines: all others

Figures do not include student loan debt that students may have incurred before they enrolled at UC or interest that accrued while students were enrolled at UC.

Average cumulative borrowing is expressed in constant 2008 dollars. Inflationary adjustments relied on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage-earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).

You may view or download a table of the raw data used to generate these charts in CSV files, which can be opened in spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.

• UniversitywideHTML | CSV