The CFPB has issued a “50-state snapshot of student debt,” which provides student debt data on a state-by-state basis.

The report states that the complaint data “reflects over 50,000 student loan complaints and over 10,000 debt collection complaints related to private or federal student loan debt, submitted through September 30, 2017.”  The CFPB began accepting private student loan complaints in March 2012, debt collection complaints in July 2013, and federal student loan servicing complaints in February 2016.

For each state, the report indicates:

• Total student loan complaints handled

• Change in volume of student loan complaints handled

• Total debt collection complaints handled related to student loans

• Change in volume of debt collection complaints handled related to student loans

• Total outstanding student loan debt balance as of 2016

The percentage changes in complaints volume set forth in the report compare October 2015 through September 2016 with October 2016 to September 2017.  The CFPB notes that “part of this year-to-year increase can be attributed to the CFPB updating its student loan complaint form to accept complaints about federal student loan servicing, starting in late February 2016.  The Bureau also initiated an enforcement action against a large student loan servicer during the time period covered by the report.”

The total outstanding student debt loan balance is taken from the CFPB’s analysis of State Level Household Debt Statistics from 1999 to 2016 issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in May 2017.

For each state, the CFPB provides a map showing the number of complaints by type (student loan or debt collection) by geocoded zipcode.