Why is student debt different from other kinds of debt? When it
comes to consumer debt, Americans are slowly but surely starting
to dig themselves out of the hole of the recent downturn.
Severely delinquent mortgages, credit card bills, and car loans
have all been in decline over the last two years, according to
the New York Federal Reserve. But Americans have had
significantly more trouble paying back one particular kind of
loan. “Student loan debt continues to grow even as consumers
reduce mortgage debt and credit card balances,” Donghoon Lee,
senior economist at the New York Fed, said in a statement. “It
remains the only form of consumer debt to substantially increase
since the peak of household debt in late 2008.” The overall
student debt load has risen to more than $900 billion, in part,
because more students are going to school, and the cost of
tuition continues to balloon. But it’s also because consumers
have more trouble paying off their student loans than other
kinds of debt. In the first quarter of