AcknowledgementsThe Institute for College Access and unpublished data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, 2017 annual average for unemployment rates. Young adults are defined as persons aged 25 to 34.* All figures in this section are calculations by TICAS on data from the U.S. Department of Educations Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS), which follows undergraduate students who enrolled in college for the first time in 2003-04 and tracks whether they defaulted on their federal student loans within 12 years of entering college. This analysis looks at the default rates for all entering students, not just borrowers, which reflect both students varying likelihood of borrowing loans as well as borrowers likelihood of defaulting. For more information about students repayment struggles by completion status, see TICAS. 2018. Students at Greatest Risk of Loan Default. ticas/wp-content/uploads/legacy-files/pub_files/students_at_the_greatest_risk_of_default.pdf.* These differences are statistically significant, though the for-profit college student estimate has high relative standard errors due to small sample sizes. Student Debt and the Class of 2018Page 10 Statewide average debt levels for the Class of 2018 range from $19,750 (Utah) to $38,650 (Connecticut). Many of the same states appear at the high and low ends of the spectrum as in previous years.21The share of graduates with debt ranges from 36 percent to 76 percent. The following tables show the states with the highest and lowest average debt levels for the Class of 2018. As in past years, high-debt states are concentrated in the Northeast, and low-debt states are primarily in the West.22The following table shows each states average debt and proportion of students with loans in the Class of 2018, along with information about the amount of usable data available for each state.23Student Debt by StateTABLE 1HIGH-DEBT STATESConnecticut $38,669Pennsylvania $37,061New Hampshire $36,776Rhode Island $36,036New Jersey $34,387Delaware $34,144District of Columbia $34,046Maine $32,676Minnesota $32,317Michigan $32,158TABLE 2LOW-DEBT STATESUtah $19,728 New Mexico $21,858 California $22,585 Nevada $22,600 Washington $23,524 Hawaii $24,162 Florida $24,428 Wyoming $24,474 Colorado $24,888 Oklahoma $25,221