A higher education is a major investment, and with tuition costs skyrocketing it should come as no surprise that student loan debt is also on the rise. In fact, in the United States in 2002 there was only about 200 billion dollars worth of outstanding student loan debt. Now? There is at least 1.1 trillion dollars worth on the balance sheets! That is a huge increase.
There are 37 million people with student loan debt, and some 6.7 million of them are 90 days or more late. That’s a lot of people! In 1989 the average amount of student loan debt was less than 10,000 dollars. Now? It’s more than 25,000 dollars!
Lower and middle class homes take on the lion’s share of student loan debt. In fact, homes earning less than 36,723 dollars own 24 percent of all debt while homes earning between 36,724 dollars and 97,585 dollars own about 45 percent of all debt.
Most importantly, however, is the amount of money that goes into paying student loans. For a poorer individual, 24 cents of every dollar will go into repaying a loan. For a middle class individual? 12 cents will go into repaying every dollar. And for a higher income individual? You will be looking at only 2 cents of every dollar going back to student loans.
Yikes! And this all comes at a time when household incomes have dropped by more than 10 percent due to the down economy. Student loans are having a huge impact on consumer behaviors, with people delaying purchasing cars, and postponing marriage or retirement.
There is a heck of a lot more information, so check out all of the charts and graphs above. Democracy for America did a great job with this infographic, so props to them!
