Released: September 26, 2012 A Record One-in-Five Households Now
Owe Student Loan Debt Burden Greatest on Young, Poor About one
out of five (19%) of the nation’s households owed student debt
in 2010, more than double the share two decades earlier1 and a
significant rise from the 15% that owed such debt in 2007, just
prior to the onset of the Great Recession, according to a Pew
Research Center analysis of newly available government data. The
Pew Research analysis also finds that a record 40% of all
households headed by someone younger than age 35 owe such debt,
by far the highest share among any age group. It also finds
that, whether computed as a share of household income or assets,
the relative burden of student loan debt is greatest for
households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum, even
though members of such households are less likely than those in
other groups to attend college in the first place.2 Since 2007
the incidence of student debt has increased in nearly every
demographic and economic cat