Not New York, Not California: This Is Where You'll Find The USA's Highest Federal Student Loan Debt

Manhattan may be the most expensive U.S. city to live in and the San Francisco Bay area may have some of the priciest colleges in the country, but neither New York nor California have the highest rates of federal student loan debt. That unfortunate honor goes to Washington, D.C., where the average student loan debt is $54,561, as of 2026, per Education Data Initiative – well above the 2026 national average of $40,467 per borrower.

Given that Washington ranks among the states with the highest average salaries, it's perhaps not entirely surprising it has the highest percentage of residents with federal student loan debt. However, even high earners can end up living paycheck to paycheck, which is why it is particularly important to choose the right student loan repayment plan for your budget, regardless of where you live.

With that said, Washington's level of debt is $16,261 more than California's reported average and $15,810 more than New York. Even the state with the second-highest federal student loan debt, Maryland, has an average student loan amount that's nearly $11,000 less than Washington. At the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota has the lowest average federal student loan debt, at $29,115 – almost half that of Washington's average debt.

Per Education Data Initiative, 20.1% of adults in Washington have federal student loan debt. That's a higher percentage than anywhere else in the U.S. The reason comes down to a few different factors. For instance, Quartz reports that the area's high number of graduate schools and professional programs, combined with Washington's small population, skews the student debt average higher. As of 2025, Washington had a population of just under 700,000, per the U.S. Census Bureau — more comparable to places like Vermont and Alaska rather than New York and California. Meanwhile, there are numerous law, medical, business, and public policy programs in the metro area that can, and do, extend student loan debt beyond a four-year degree.

However, while Washington has a high average student loan debt, it doesn't actually have the highest cumulative debt. In this case, that would be California, with $156.7 billion in total federal student loan debt in 2026. Texas, Florida, New York, and Georgia round out the top five, ranging from $74.6 billion to $138.3 billion. By comparison, Washington only has a total of $6.4 billion in student loan debt.