 TITLE: Student Loan Debt Reaches Record High as Most Repayment Is Paused CONTENT: All types of debt have seen significant change during the pandemic—for example, credit card debt decreased significantly while mortgage borrowing increased at record levels—but student loans saw the greatest change of any debt. From 2015 to 2019, student loan debt grew at an average rate of just under 6% per year—making it one of the slowest-growing consumer debts. Since 2019, however, the overall student loan balance increased by 12%—the largest annual growth rate of any debt type.\nTotal student loan debt in the U.S. reached a record high of $1.57 trillion in 2020—an increase of about $166 billion since 2019. And while debt is up 12%, the total number of accounts saw little growth (+0.3%), showing that it's not necessarily new borrowing driving the debt increase, but new borrowing on top of existing debt not being paid off. In fact, as of Q3 2020, 72% of student loan accounts were reported as in forbearance or deferral, according to Experian data. Compared with the same period in 2019, that's an increase of 37 percentage points.\nSource: Experian END