Student Debt by Degree Field

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Geoscience bachelor’s degree recipients tend to have higher student debt load when compared to other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree fields. Most STEM bachelor degree recipients with student loans owe in excess of $20,000. Geoscience master’s degree recipients also tend to have higher amounts of student debt when compared to other STEM fields, the one exception being life sciences. In Master’s degree programs, most students with debt owe in excess of $10,000.

Student debt of Bachelor's and Master's degree recipients by field (2003). Source: AGI Geoscience Workforce Program, data derived from NSF SESTAT 2003 dataset.