Report: PhD Students Least Likely to Depend on Loans

Increasingly, graduate students "are leaning heavily on loans and grants to pay for their education," The Chronicle of Higher Education's Ryan Brown says, discussing a new report released by the US Department of Education this week. Drawing upon data culled from the 2007-2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the agency shows that "across all types of degrees and institutions … most students received some type of financial aid," Brown says, adding that "those in professional programs at private, nonprofit institutions received the highest aid, on average, at $36,200 annually." The DOE also found that those enrolled in PhD programs "were the least likely group of graduate students to be dependent on loans, averaging 14 percent of their aid in loans, compared with 80 percent of law students and 82 percent of medical and other health-sciences students," Brown says.