The value of outstanding student loans in the United States has ballooned since the first quarter of 2006. As of the fourth quarter of 2024, American students owed over 1.77 trillion U.S. dollars in student loans. In the first quarter of 2006, this figure stood at 480.9 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2024, the generation Z in the United States had an average of roughly 22,950 U.S. dollars in student loan debt. By contrast, Generation X had the highest student loan debt, amounting to approximately 44,240 U.S. dollars. The value of outstanding student loans has been consistently rising over the past few decades.

Statistics on student debt, including the average debt at graduation, the percentage of graduates who owed large debt at graduation and the percentage of graduates with debt who had paid it off at the time of the interview, are presented by the province of study and the level of study. Estimates are available at five-year intervals.

Direct combined loans, also called Stafford loans, accounted for 856 billion U.S. dollars of outstanding student loan debt in the United States in 2024. Stafford loans are a type of federal student loans offered to eligible university students at a lower interest rate than private loans. In the first quarter of 2024, outstanding student loan debt in the United States totaled over 1.75 trillion U.S. dollars.

Graph and download economic data for Student Loans Owned and Securitized (SLOAS) from Q1 2006 to Q4 2024 about student, securitized, owned, loans, and USA.

As of the fourth quarter of 2024, federal student loan borrowers aged between 35 and 49 years had the most student debt out of all age groups in the United States, with a total outstanding debt of 646.6 billion U.S. dollars. Studies have shown that Black women are the most likely demographic to have student loan debt in the United States.

Presents statistics on student loan borrower status and repayments by repayment cohort and tax year, produced by the Student Loans Company

Source agency: Business, Innovation and Skills

Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Student loan repayments

Graph and download economic data for Federal Government; Consumer Credit, Student Loans; Asset, Level (FGCCSAQ027S) from Q4 1945 to Q4 2024 about student, IMA, consumer credit, federal, assets, loans, government, consumer, and USA.

For those graduating college in the United States in 2020, five-figure debt was the norm across all states. Students in New Hampshire had the highest debt levels in the country, at 39,928 U.S. dollars on average. The lowest average amount of debt that students had was in the state of Utah at 18,344 U.S. dollars.

Percentage of graduates who borrowed from government student loan programs and their average debt at graduation, Canada and provinces. This table is included in Section B: Financing education systems of the Pan Canadian Education Indicators Program (PCEIP). PCEIP is an ongoing initiative of the Canadian Education Statistics Council, a partnership between Statistics Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada that provides a set of statistical measures on education systems in Canada.

As the pandemic accelerated calls to provide relief to millions of student borrowers, President Biden announced executive action to cancel 10,000 dollars of student debt for most federal student loan holders. Both prior to and following his announcement, policymakers have debated the merits and details of student debt relief, focusing particular attention on the perceived deservingness of student loan borrowers. But we have little systematic evidence about how the public evaluates borrower deservingness, or whether elite arguments framing support or opposition to debt relief in terms of deservingness influence public preferences for student debt cancellation. This paper employs original conjoint and framing experiments conducted just prior to Biden’s announcement to explore each query. We find that, while certain borrower characteristics indicating need (e.g., amount of debt), responsibility for debt (e.g., type of institution attended), and reciprocity (e.g., time in repayment) can influence people’s evaluations of whether borrowers deserve debt relief, those results may not translate to broader deservingness arguments for or against student debt cancellation in a clear manner. Ultimately, our results shed light on a timely policy issue, while extending scholarly understandings of deservingness for a critical, and understudied, aspect of the American welfare state.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S government paused payments on federal student loans starting on March 13, 2020, moving billions of dollars of student debt into forbearance. Forbearance means that no payments need to be made, with the interest rate set to zero percent. In the second quarter of 2022 and 2023, the majority of federal student loans remained in forbearance, totaling over 1000 billion U.S. dollars. However, loan repayments and interest rates restarted in October 2023, lowering the amount of student loans in forbearance to 93.7 billion U.S. dollars as of Q2 2024.

In 2024, the average student loan debt of graduates of Northwestern University, ranked as the 6th best college in the United States, amounted to 36,425 U.S. dollars. For students at Princeton University, classified as the best U.S. college in that year, they left college with student loan debt totaling 17,494 U.S. dollars on average.

Incidence and repayment of government student loans among graduates who did not pursue any further postsecondary education program, Canada and provinces. This table is included in Section B: Financing education systems of the Pan Canadian Education Indicators Program (PCEIP). PCEIP is an ongoing initiative of the Canadian Education Statistics Council, a partnership between Statistics Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada that provides a set of statistical measures on education systems in Canada.

All files needed to replicate data analysis and figures in "The Political Benefits of Student Loan Debt Relief"

In the fourth quarter of 2024, 497.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of student loans were in forbearance in the United States. This reflects the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, where the government temporarily paused student loan payments and froze the accumulation of interest. Federal student loan repayments resumed in October 2023, with 599 billion U.S. dollars worth of student loans in repayment as of Q4 2024. During this time period, outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. totaled over 1.77 trillion U.S. dollars.

Provides snapshots of the outstanding federal student loan portfolio by loan program, loan type, loan status, repayment plan, delinquency, servicer, and various borrower demographics.

Free yourself from student loan debt : get out from under once and for all is a book. It was written by Brian O'Connell and published by Dearborn in 2004.

Student debt of postsecondary graduates who owed to government-sponsored student loans at graduation. Debt at graduation and interview, by level of study, field of study and gender.

South Africa: Percent of student loan debt balance 90+ days delinquent: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.00 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for South Africa from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .