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3 Things You Didn’t Know about Student Loan Debt and (Potential) Debt Cancellation
There are 3 things we need to know about student loan debt and (potential) debt cancellation.
Although these facts don’t get discussed much in mainstream media in the U.S., they are necessary to really understand what is going on.
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Before we get to that, though, let’s first make sure we’re on the same page with regard to the size of the student loan debt crisis in the U.S.
Is student loan debt really a big issue or not?
For starters, 43.4 million Americans now carry more student loan debt ($1.75 trillion) than total U.S. car loan debt ($1.46 trillion) or total U.S. credit card debt ($856 billion).
Ok, that sounds big.
Equally alarming, total student debt has more than tripled over the past 15 years while the number of people paying off that debt increased by “only” 55%.
Whoa.
This means that the average student loan debt per repayer has more than doubled, increasing from $18,500 per person in 2007 to $40,300 in 2021.
Oh. That’s not good. Could this situation possibly get worse?
Sure. Yes. It turns out that the situation is actually a lot worse…
…because the student loan debt crisis has been building over the past 20 years at the same time as healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs in general, and childcare costs have all been skyrocketing in the U.S.