A new report on student loan debt finds the proportion of community college students saddled with debt at graduation has skyrocketed in the last five years.

The report, a College Board analysis of the U.S. Education Department’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, found that nearly half of 2007-08 community college graduates took out education loans to pay for school, up from thirty-seven percent in 2003-04. Of those students who did take out loans, half accumulated debts of more than $10,000.

Borrowing rose from 30% to 38% of graduates of public community colleges, and from 90% to 98% of graduates of for-profit two-year schools. The debt burden among those taking out loans was higher at the private two-years, too — 43% had debts of more than $20,000, compared to just 13% of public community college grads.

All told, 59% of college graduates left school with at least some educational debt in 2007-08, up  from 55% just four years earlier. Students’ median debt rose from $13,663 to $15,123 in the same period, an 11% rise.

These figures exclude credit card debt and loans from friends and family, by the way, so the true numbers are even higher.

Update: As the Chronicle of Higher Education notes, debt burdens for four-year college grads vary dramatically by college type too. They point out that “10 percent of students at four-year public institutions had $40,000 or more in loans, while 22 percent of graduates of private four-year institutions and 25 percent of students graduating from for-profit four-year institutions had that level of debt.”