"<i>While the typical college student in the United States accrues an average of $29,420 in student debt...</i>"<p>Ok, this is killing me.<p>That statement comes from <a href="https://archinect.com/features/article/112509888/the-state-of-debt-and-the-price-of-architecture" rel="nofollow">https://archinect.com/features/article/112509888/the-state-o...</a>, which says, "<i>While the average student debt for a US American student is $29,400,...</i>" and links to a search, <a href="https://ticas.org/search/google/posd%20OR%20homestate%20OR%20by%20OR%20state%20OR%20data" rel="nofollow">https://ticas.org/search/google/posd%20OR%20homestate%20OR%2...</a>. On the other hand, they're not the only ones: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-loan-debt-statistics-2018/#38d08bff7310" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student...</a>.<p>Here's the deal: all of the numbers I can find in the $30,000-$40,000 range are for <i>people with some educational debt.</i> In other words, it excludes those without debt. (Want to bump up your average? Exclude the zeros.)<p>"<i>Twenty-seven percent of adults report that they borrowed money to pay for expenses related to their own education, .... Among just those who completed at least some education beyond high school, 41 percent acquired at least some debt to finance that education, and half of those who completed at least a bachelor's degree acquired at least some debt in the process.</i>" - <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2015-education-debt-student-loans.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-wel...</a><p>Second, this defines "the typical college student" as the average college student with debt, as those are the numbers they're using, as opposed to the median college student college student. The median is consistently lower: "<i>Among respondents who report that they currently owe student loan debt for their own education, the mean level of this debt is $30,156 and the median is $12,000. (The median amount of education debt is consistently lower than the mean due to some individuals with large levels of debt).</i>" - <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2015-education-debt-student-loans.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-wel...</a><p>In fact, the reference this essay uses says, "<i>In the United States, around 40 million people currently hold student debt,</i>" linking to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyle-mccarthy/10-fun-facts-about-student-loan-debt_b_4639044.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyle-mccarthy/10-fun-facts-ab...</a>, which links to <a href="http://pages.citebite.com/c2y6l3p2t8uga" rel="nofollow">http://pages.citebite.com/c2y6l3p2t8uga</a>, "<i>More than 40 million Americans have student loan debt, amounting to roughly $1.2 trillion in outstanding debt.</i>" [Thus, the roughly $30,000 average value.]<p>I just wish to note that (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#General_attainment_of_degrees/diplomas" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...</a>, <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-age/?dataView=1&currentTimeframe=0&selectedDistributions=adults-19-25--adults-26-34--adults-35-54--adults-55-64--65&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D" rel="nofollow">https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-ag...</a>) there are roughly 125 million Americans with a bachelors or greater, leading to an "average" student loan debt of $9,600.<p>Does the Harvard Design Review fact-check their essays? Is the author taking entirely too many psychoactives?<p>Thanks. I feel better now.