NY Fed Report: Student Loan Debt Piles Up; Now at $1.16 Trillion

While overall delinquency rates were unchanged at 4.3 percent in the fourth quarter, delinquency rates for auto loans and student loans worsened, according to the New York Federal Reserve.

“Although we’ve seen an overall improvement in delinquency rates since the Great Recession, the increasing trend in student loan balances and delinquencies is concerning,” said Donghoon Lee, research officer at the NY Fed. “Student loan delinquencies and repayment problems appear to be reducing borrowers’ ability to form their own households.”

 The chart below shows balance-weighted 90+ day delinquency rates by category of household debt.

Overall, student loan debt, according to the Fed, climbed in the fourth quarter of 2014 by $31 billion to $1.16 trillion. With the student loan delinquency rate increasing to 11.3%.

And this is what you get, when you have the government backing up student loans that no sane banker would make if the loans weren't backed up by the government.

All this money floating around for student loans also, btw, drives up the cost of a college education. Without the government, through its loan backing, directing Fed money printing in the direction of the education sector, college education would be much, much cheaper--and much more useful.

--RW