The average student loan debt for a US undergraduate degree is ~$37k, which lines up with that $9k/year.

When people talk about tons of student loan debt, they are invariably including graduate students getting professional degrees, like law and medicine. The average student loan debt after medical school is ~266k. But compared to the earning potential of a doctor (starting salaries between $200k and $500k), that isn't some unrecoverable debt load. The only people really screwed are the ones who decide they don't want to be a doctor a couple years in.

https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt#by-educa...