College students are accumulating increasing amounts of debt while they pursue t
ID: 3223867 • Letter: C
Question
College students are accumulating increasing amounts of debt while they pursue their degrees. This debt has a significant economic affect as the new graduates strive to begin their life after graduation. Nationally, the mean debt of recent graduates from all public 4-year institutions was $21,740.
How does the loan debt of recent graduates of North Carolina's public colleges and universities compare to student loan debt nationally? To answer this question, use the data in this Excel file North Carolina Student Debt that shows the student debt of recent graduates from a random sample of UNC System schools to perform the hypothesis test
H0: = 21,740, Ha: < 21,740
where is the mean student loan debt of all recent graduates from UNC System schools.
1. What is the value of the test statistic t for this hypothesis test? (round x and s to the nearest whole number).
2. What is the P-value for this hypothesis test? (use 4 decimal places in your answer)
Student Debt, Class of 2010, Sample of North Carolina Public 4-year-and-above Schools Name Year Institution Sector Average debt of graduates Percent of graduates with debt Fall enrollment - Full-time ugrad Tuition and fees (in-state) UNC Greensboro 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 23772 0.67 12891 4234 UNC School of the Arts 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 22173 0.71 737 5449 NC A & T 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 21644 0.64 8039 3696 NCSU 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 19988 0.47 22018 5475 UNC-Wilmington 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 19277 0.25 10487 4873 UNC Charlotte 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 17472 0.46 16494 4427 ECU 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 17243 0.57 18392 4477 Appalachian 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 16130 0.55 14116 4491 UNC Asheville 2009-10 Public, 4-year or above 15443 0.48 3132 4330Explanation / Answer
Below are the null and alternate hypothesis
H0: ? = 21,740
Ha: ? < 21,740
From the given data we have sample mean and std. dev. as below
Mean = 19238
std. dev. = 2887
Test statitstics, t = (19238 - 21740)/(2887/sqrt(9)) = -2.6
p-value = 0.0158
As p-value is less than significance level of 0.05, we reject the null hypothesis.