Dive Brief:

• Graduate student debt is to blame for some of the oft-cited and dramatic increases in student loan borrowing from 2004 to 2012, according to a new report.
• The New America Foundation analysis found that about 40% of recent federal student loans are to graduate students.
• The graduate student debt increases aren’t limited to the most expensive programs, such as medicine and law. One example: Median indebtedness for a borrower with a master of arts degree was $59,000 in 2012, jumping from $38,000 in 2004.

Dive Insight:

So graduate students are apparently shouldering much of the $1 trillion in federal student loan debt — the figure that the media enjoys using so often. One of New America’s angles with its research is to show that federal policies may be playing a role in “encouraging cost escalation.” The report concludes that students graduating today won’t necessarily pay more out-of-pocket than they would have 10 years ago. That’s because of new taxpayer-funded programs offering debt relief and assistance to graduate students.