Good news, college grads — student loan debt burdens are growing more slowly than they have for previous classes. The bad news? You're still pretty deep in the red. People who got their bachelor's degrees from a public college or nonprofit university in 2018 graduated owing an average of $29,200, according to the Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). That's the second-highest debt load students graduated with in the past five years — graduates in the class of 2015 left school with a debt burden of $30,100.