If college sent you into the real world last year saddled with $10,000 in student loan debt, take solace in the realization that there is someone out there who owes $40,000 in order to average things out. A newly released study found that the average balance of a student who took out loans and graduated in 2010 was $25,250 — a 5 percent increase from the previous year.

The New York Times notes that the debt is particularly tough on grads in recent years who have struggled to find a job in a job market squeezed dry by a near double-digit unemployment rate.

The Project on Student Debt study, which doesn’t examine money borrowed by parents, collected figures from 1,000 nonproit, four-year schools. Hardly any of the 471 scamtastic for-profit schools bothered to report their data.

College Graduates’ Debt Burden Grew, Yet Again, in 2010 [The New York Times]

Previously: College Tuition Has Risen 8.3 Percent This Year

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