California undergraduates are much less likely to use federal loans — just 15% of students in the state did in 2021-22, compared to 29% nationally. In both cases, that’s a significant drop from the time of the Great Recession, when family incomes collapsed, tuition doubled as state coffers disintegrated, and debt was the only way to pay for a degree.

One major reason California has a lower borrowing rate is because community college students, who make up most of the state’s undergraduates, almost never borrow — just 1% do.

The federal government limits how much undergraduates can borrow annually in federal loans. The latest numbers put the national average for federal borrowing at about $6,600. In California, the average amount borrowed was nearly $6,900.