Minnesota ranks No. 3 for highest college loan debt

College students in Minnesota carry the third-highest average loan debt in the nation, at $29,739 per student, according to a report released Thursday by the California-based Institute for College Access and Success. Only Pennsylvania and New Hampshire had higher averages.

And Minnesota is No. 5 on a list that ranks graduates who carry student loan debt – 71 percent have debt in Minnesota.

For a list of Minnesota colleges and universities that shows average debt loads for each school, check out this report by the Project on Student Debt. The biggest debt loads in the state, according to this list, are at: Minneapolis College of Art and Design ($43,035); The College of Saint Scholastica ($41,282); Concordia University, St. Paul ($36,757).

Nationwide, about two-thirds of college students in 2011 graduated with an average of $26,600 in student loan debt, an increase of about 5 percent from the previous class, the New York Times reports.