Table 1.

Characteristics of Medical School Graduates Overall and Among Those With Loans

Characteristic	All	Type of Loan Received
		Perkins/Disadvantaged Student Loans	Health Professions Student Loans	Loans Not Based on Parents’ Income
Graduates, No. (%)	136,232 (100)	42,389 (31.1)	6,568 (4.8)	58,309 (42.8)
Debt category, %
None	20.6	0	0	0
$1–$50,000	17.9	10.0	12.7	32.7
$50,001–$100,000	28.6	41.0	48.9	32.8
$100,001–$150,000	20.2	31.3	26.8	22.2
$150,001–$200,000	7.5	11.7	8.8	8.4
≥$200,001	3.6	6.0	2.8	3.9
Debt amount, $a
Mean	92,689	105,407	94,135	83,281
Median	85,471	97,484	87,757	73,296
Graduation era, %
1988–1992	37.0	32.2	59.9	35.2
1993–1996	33.6	34.5	35.7	32.2
1997–2000	29.4	33.3	4.4	32.7
Demographics
Married at graduation, %b	33.4	33.1	43.8	33.6
Male, %	60.2	58.1	61.8	60.4
Born in a rural county, %	0.74	0.93	1.00	0.73
Age at graduation, mean, y	27.7	27.8	27.7	27.8
Medical school
Rural, %	0.42	0.38	0.23	0.45
Public, %	62.1	67.8	65.3	59.1
NHSC scholarship, %	0.42	0.37	0.35	0.53
Community based, %	5.8	8.2	3.6	5.1

NHSC = National Health Service Corps.

Note: Percentages may not sum to 100% because of missing data fields. In particular, debt level was unknown for 3.3% of the study sample.

^aMean and median debt levels exclude students with no debt. Debt levels are adjusted to 2010 dollars.

^bMarital status was unknown for 29.9% of the study sample. Unknown marital status did not predict any study outcomes in multivariate models.