US Student Loan Debt Statistics in 2025

Total student loan debt in the United States has reached $1.81 trillion, according to Q3 2025 Federal Reserve data.

BestColleges' August 2025 report shows that the average federal borrower owes $39,375. Now that the federal payment pause is over, millions are facing a "payment shock" and a system in complete disorganization.

Widespread reports of incorrect payment calculations, lost paperwork, and 3-hour hold times are the new normal. Overwhelmed? We totally get it. This article dives into the data and gives you the tools you need to slay this beast of burden and pay off your debt.

Key US Student Loan Figures (2025)

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Who Holds the Debt? A 2025 Demographic Breakdown

Borrower count & 12-month trend

There are 42.3 million federal student loan borrowers, according to an August 2025 BestColleges report. There is no official headcount of private student loan borrowers, but a May 2025 NCSL estimate puts the total at 44 million across both private and federal student loan borrowers.

A July 2025 Federal Student Aid report shows that the 12-month trend in the borrower count has been slowly declining over the past year. Conversely, total student loan debt is increasing. This isn’t because of new borrowers, but because of compounding interest on existing debt and the rising cost of tuition.

Households with student debt

BestColleges (2025): About 30% of U.S. adults have taken out a student loan at some point in their lives. Among adults who pursued postsecondary education, 40% are currently in student loan debt.

Borrowers by age band (18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55+)

The largest share of student loan borrowers falls in the 25–34 and 35–49 age bands, which together hold over $1.1 trillion in student debt across more than 29 million borrowers, according to StudentLoanProfessor’s February 2025 data.

Here’s the full age breakdown:

Student Loan Debt by State

Highest/lowest average balances

The District of Columbia has the highest average student loan balances at $54,945, while North Dakota has the lowest at $28,604, according to state-by-state data from World Population Review (2025).

Top 5 Highest Average Student Debt:

1. District of Columbia — $54,945

2. Maryland — $42,861

3. Georgia — $41,639

4. Virginia — $39,165

5. Florida — $38,459

Bottom 5 Lowest Average Student Debt:

1. North Dakota — $28,604

2. Iowa — $30,464

3. South Dakota — $30,954

4. Wyoming — $31,250

5. Oklahoma — $31,525

Regional wage context (debt-to-income lens)

Looking at the state-level data above, there is a clear pattern: areas with a higher cost of living, such as the District of Columbia ($54,945), Maryland ($42,861), Georgia ($41,639), and Virginia ($39,165), also tend to have higher student loan balances.

In contrast, traditionally lower-wage or lower-cost regions, including North Dakota ($28,604), Iowa ($30,464), South Dakota ($30,954), and Wyoming ($31,250), have the smallest average balances. This means borrowers in high-debt, high-cost regions face a heavier debt-to-income burden even before factoring in wage variation.

State aid and tuition dynamics

College Board’s Trends in College Pricing & Student Aid 2025 confirms that student loan balances vary widely by state because tuition levels and state financial aid are uneven. High-tuition states like Vermont, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania offer comparatively limited state grant aid, while high-aid states like California keep out-of-pocket costs (and thus loan burdens) far lower.

The pattern is consistent: states with high tuition and weak grant aid have higher student loan debt, while states with strong aid and lower tuition reduce the need to borrow.

Average Student Loan Debt

Overall average per borrower (distribution, median)

According to BestColleges' August 2025 data, the average federal student loan debt per borrower is $39,375.

Private student loans: Sources do not provide a reliable nationwide average for private-only borrowers, and most analysts avoid quoting it because of inconsistent reporting.

Median student loan debt: $20,000–$24,999 (half of borrowers owe less, half owe more).

The average looks high because it’s pulled upward by borrowers in graduate and professional programs (law, medicine, MBA). Median debt is a better indicator for the “typical” borrower.

Undergraduate vs. graduate/professional balances

As expected, student loan balances rise sharply with each level of education. Borrowers who complete graduate or professional programs carry significantly more debt than those finishing two or four-year degrees.

• Associate’s degree: $20,340

• Bachelor’s degree: $29,300

• Graduate degree: $77,300

Sources: Education Data Initiative (2025), Student Loan Professor (2025), BestColleges (2025)

By credential & field (STEM/business/health/etc.)

Student loan debt varies dramatically by field of study. Business degrees sit on the lower end in the $50k range. In contrast, degrees in healthcare, such as medicine, dentistry, and veterinary medicine, produce the highest balances of any credential, upwards of $250k!

Source: Student Loan Professor (2025)

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Federal vs. Private Student Loans

Balance share & typical interest rates (fixed vs variable)

Most student loan debt in the U.S. is federal (approximately 91.8%), with private loans making up only a small share of the overall market (8.2%). Federal loans are always fixed-rate, while private loans can be fixed or variable. This creates a wider (and riskier) range of possible interest costs.

Source: (Nerdwallet, 2025)

Underwriting differences (cosigners, credit)

Federal and private student loans use different underwriting standards. Federal loans are intended to be accessible to all, while private loans operate more like traditional consumer credit products. In other words, they’re heavily influenced by creditworthiness and cosigners.

Private Loans

• 92.45% of private undergraduate loans require a cosigner.
• 68.46% of private graduate loans require a cosigner.
• Approval depends on credit score, income, debt-to-income ratio, and cosigner strength.

Federal Loans

• No credit check required.
• No cosigner requirement.
• Eligibility is based on FAFSA, dependency status, demonstrated financial need, and federal aid formulas.

Source: (Education Data Initiative, 2025)

Refinance activity & who benefits/risks

Student loan refinancing primarily concerns private loans. According to the 2025 Education Data Initiative report, about $27.4 billion in outstanding private loans, roughly 19.8% of the private student loan market, are refinance loans. Federal loans don’t offer actual refinancing; the only federal option, Direct Loan Consolidation, simply combines loans and keeps a weighted-average rate, meaning it cannot lower the interest.

Who Benefits?

Refinancing favors borrowers who meet private-lender credit standards, including those with strong credit, stable/high income, low debt-to-income ratios, or borrowers looking to remove a cosigner. Graduate and professional borrowers with large balances often save the most when they qualify for lower rates.

Who’s at Risk?
Refinancing federal loans into private loans permanently removes federal protections such as IDR/SAVE, PSLF, hardship forbearance, and federal discharge options. Borrowers also face exposure to variable rates.

Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) & SAVE

Share Enrolled in IDR Plans

According to the June 2025 FSA Data Center update, about 12.7 million borrowers are enrolled in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan. That’s roughly 39% of all borrowers who are actually in a repayment-eligible status. On a dollar basis, IDR covers 56% of all federally managed loan balances (about $740 billion), reflecting its prevalence among borrowers with larger debts.

Interest handling (subsidy/waiver mechanics)

Different IDR plans treat unpaid interest differently, which determines whether a borrower's balance grows over time.

SAVE Plan: Waives 100% of unpaid monthly interest on all loan types for the entire repayment period, so balances cannot grow from unpaid interest.

PAYE: Provides a 100% interest subsidy on subsidized loans for the first 3 years only. No subsidy for unsubsidized loans. Unpaid interest capitalizes if the borrower fails to recertify or loses eligibility, but capitalization is capped at 10% of the original balance.

IBR: Provides a 100% interest subsidy on subsidized loans for the first 3 years only. No subsidy for unsubsidized loans. Unpaid interest capitalizes if the borrower doesn't recertify or loses partial financial hardship status.

ICR: No interest subsidy. Unpaid interest accrues and may capitalize in certain circumstances, but there is no official capitalization cap published for this plan.

Note: The 3-year subsidy period for PAYE and IBR is a lifetime limit that doesn't reset when switching between plans. It’s also important to note that recent court actions are changing how the SAVE plan works, and there are a lot of mechanics that are uncertain and in flux. Refer back to this page for updates.

Sources: Federal Student Aid (2025), (edfinancial) Federal Student Aid (2025), Code of Federal Regulations (2025)

Annual recertification—documentation & deadlines

Under every income-driven repayment (IDR) plan, borrowers must recertify their income and family size once per year.

Recertification ensures your servicer can recalculate your monthly payment and determine continued eligibility for your plan.

Failing to recertify leads to different consequences depending on the plan:

• All IDR plans: If family size isn’t recertified, the servicer assumes a family size of one, which may increase monthly payments.

• SAVE: Borrowers are removed from SAVE and placed on an alternative repayment plan with payments no longer based on income.

• PAYE & ICR: Borrowers remain on the same plan, but payments switch to the 10-year Standard Repayment amount until income information is updated.

• IBR: All unpaid interest capitalizes, and payments switch to the 10-year Standard Repayment amount until income is recertified.

Forgiveness horizons (20-/25-year paths)

Under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, any remaining federal student loan balance may be forgiven after 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan and the type of loans a borrower holds. The Federal Student Aid outlines the following forgiveness timelines:

Several periods still count toward these forgiveness clocks, including economic hardship deferment, certain repayment under other plans, and months where the borrower’s required payment is $0. Borrowers can also check their official count of qualifying IDR payments directly on StudentAid.gov.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)

Approvals & Average Forgiven

As stated by the Federal Student Aid—from June 2024 through July 2025—borrowers submitted 2.95 million Public Service Loan Forgiveness forms, covering about 1.51 million individuals. Of these, 1.83 million forms were processed, with 246,200 still pending and 877,800 closed or cancelled. An approved form does not necessarily mean a borrower will receive forgiveness.

According to FSA forgiveness data cited by LendingTree (September 2025), 1,155,400 unique borrowers have had their loans forgiven through PSLF, TEPSLF, or the limited waiver, with an average forgiven amount of about $74,000.

Eligible Employer Types & Hours Rules

PSLF eligibility depends entirely on who you work for, not the specific job duties you perform.

Qualifying employers include U.S. federal, state, local, or tribal government agencies; the U.S. military; 501(c)(3) nonprofits; certain other nonprofits whose staff primarily provide public services; and service in AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps.

Ineligible employers include for-profit organizations, government contractors, labor unions, and partisan political groups. Some special cases apply, as the Federal Student Aid’s PSLF page states. To count as full-time for PSLF, borrowers must work 30 or more hours per week on average, or meet the full-contract requirement of 8+ months.

Common Disqualifiers — and How to Prevent Them

Several issues can cause PSLF months to be rejected, but the good news is most are preventable. The biggest blockers are working for an ineligible employer (such as a contractor, for-profit company, labor union, or partisan organization) and not being a direct employee. Borrowers can avoid these by using the PSLF Employer Search tool, certifying employment yearly, and ensuring their form uses the qualifying employer’s EIN.

Another big issue is being on a non-qualifying repayment plan. Only IDR plans and the 10-year Standard plan count; graduated, extended, and consolidation-standard plans do not. Payments also fail to qualify if made during in-school status, grace periods, or ineligible deferments/forbearances. Auto-debit or exiting a non-qualifying status helps keep months eligible.

Additional disqualifiers include employers unable or unwilling to certify (where W-2s, pay stubs, or EIN documentation can be used instead), not maintaining full-time status, and Parent PLUS loans not being consolidated before applying.

Repayment, Delinquency & Default

Status distribution (repayment, grace, deferment, forbearance, default)

According to the June 2025 Federal Student Aid Data Center report, 40.3 million federally managed borrowers are spread across several repayment statuses. About 18.3 million borrowers, roughly 45% of the total, are in repayment or delinquency, which FSA collectively labels the “repayment universe.” Around 3% of borrowers are in their grace period, and approximately 9% (over 3 million borrowers) are in deferment.

Forbearance represents one of the largest categories, with more than 10.3 million borrowers (over 25% of the portfolio) currently in forbearance. This includes roughly 7 million placed into administrative forbearance related to the SAVE litigation. Finally, about 5.3 million borrowers are in default, representing 13.1% of all federally managed borrowers.

90-day delinquency trends (post-restart context)

Since federal payments resumed, serious delinquency has spiked, with 90-day delinquency rising faster than at any point since before the pandemic. TransUnion and The Guardian report that by April 2025, 5.8 million borrowers were 90+ days past due, representing about 31% of borrowers with a payment due. This is the highest rate ever recorded and marks a sharp jump from 20.5% in February 2025… nearly triple the 11.7% pre-pandemic level.

November 2025 portfolio-wide data from the Education Data Initiative shows a separate but related trend: 14.3% of all federal student loan debt was 90+ days delinquent, a measure that includes loans already in default and borrowers not currently required to pay. The gap between these figures reflects two different universes. TransUnion measures borrowers with payments due, while EDI captures the entire federal portfolio. Regardless, both point to a significant post-restart escalation in delinquency.

Default / rehabilitation pipeline & timelines

Federal Student Aid defines default as reaching 270 days past due, and as of June 2025, 5.3 million borrowers were already in default. That’s about 13.1% of the federally managed portfolio. Because 90-day delinquency typically precedes default, analysts projected a rapid expansion of defaults: 1.8 million additional borrowers by July 2025, 1 million more in August, and 2 million more in September.

As of November 2025, Federal Student Aidhas not released updated fall default data, so these are the most recent publicly available projections. Borrowers who do enter default can exit through loan rehabilitation, which requires nine on-time monthly payments within ten months, often as low as $5 per month under income-based terms.

How to Take Control of Your Student Loan Payments

Your Options — The SAVE Plan, Deferment, and Forbearance

When payments restart (or when your finances change), you typically have three ways to lower or pause your federal student loan payments. The first is Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), including the SAVE Plan, which bases your payment on income and family size rather than loan balance. Depending on earnings, payments can be as low as $0, and remaining balances may be forgiven after 20 or 25 years. IDR options include SAVE, PAYE, IBR, and ICR. Due to ongoing litigation, parts of SAVE were temporarily paused in early 2025, placing many borrowers into “SAVE forbearance,” although PAYE, IBR, and ICR applications reopened on March 26, 2025.

The second option is deferment, which pauses payments for specific situations such as unemployment, economic hardship, military service, or returning to school. Interest may or may not accrue depending on the loan type, and certain deferment periods (such as economic hardship) can still count toward IDR forgiveness timelines.

The third option: forbearance offers a more accessible but pricier pause. Payments temporarily stop, but interest continues to accrue, increasing the total amount owed. Some administrative forbearances, such as those linked to COVID relief or certain training programs, can still count toward PSLF or IDR credit. SAVE-related litigation also placed millions of borrowers into mandatory forbearance, contributing to more than 10.3 million borrowers in forbearance as of the Federal Student Aid’s June 2025 report.

Overall, IDR is the long-term affordability strategy, while deferment and forbearance provide short-term relief with different implications for interest and forgiveness.

The Problem Isn’t the Plan; It’s the 3-Hour Phone Call

On paper, federal repayment seems simple. The reality proves otherwise as borrowers hit the same wall: service delays, long phone queues, and inconsistent instructions from different departments. Getting onto a repayment plan is one thing; getting them processed is another challenge in itself.

Here are the facts:

• Annual IDR recertification is mandatory. Miss it, and you trigger plan-specific consequences (PAYE/ICR switch to the standard payment amount; IBR interest capitalizes).

• Millions were placed into SAVE forbearance, slowing down processing across servicers.

• Delinquency and default are rising because borrowers:

  • Can’t reach servicers
  • Face stalled applications
  • Wait on slow PSLF employer certification
  • Get forms rejected for small errors (the most common rejection reason is “missing information”)

The system is paperwork-heavy and filled with deadlines. Borrowers have to navigate this on top of potentially crushing debt. To stay on track, borrowers must stay on top of:

• Yearly income recertification
• Family-size updates
• Servicer-calculated payment changes
• PSLF employer certifications
• Verifying that payments were actually credited

For millions coming off a 3.5-year payment pause and many paying for the first time, even “update your income” can become a three-hour phone call or a months-long processing delay.

Being proactive in this case should take priority over choosing the “right” repayment plan. Recertify early, keep documentation ready, and check your servicer account regularly. Remember, a repayment plan won’t help you if no one processes it.

FAQ

How many people in the US have student loan debt?
Federal Student Aid reports 42.3 million people hold federal student loans as of June 2025. There is no official count of student borrowers across federal and private programs, but the NCSL reports approximately 44 million.

What is the average student loan payment per month?
It varies based on factors like loan balance, interest rate, income-driven repayment enrollment, and degree level. Bachelor’s degree borrowers average $336/month; master’s degree borrowers average $842/month on the standard repayment plan.

What happens if I can’t pay my student loan?
Missing a payment puts your loan into delinquency, meaning you’re past due. At 270 days past due, the loan enters default, triggering collections and credit damage.

What is the SAVE plan and who qualifies?
SAVE is an income-driven repayment plan that waives 100% of unpaid interest and bases payments on income and family size. As of early 2025, parts of SAVE are paused due to litigation, but borrowers can still apply for other IDR plans.

Does student loan debt ever get forgiven?
Yes. Federal programs include IDR forgiveness after 20–25 years and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) after 120 qualifying payments while working full-time for an eligible employer.

How do I find out who my student loan servicer is?
Log into your StudentAid.gov Dashboard. Your servicer and all federal loan details are listed directly in your account. For private loans, check your credit report or your original loan statements, since private servicers are not listed in the federal system.

Sources & Citations

Education Data Initiative, Student Loan Debt Statistics (2025)

BestColleges, "Average Student Loan Debt" (2025)

NCSL, Student Loan Debt Series (2025)

Federal Student Aid, Federal Student Loan Portfolio (2025)

Student Loan Professor, Student Loan Debt Statistics (2025)

The Guardian, One in Three Student Loan Borrowers Risk Default as Delinquency Rates Soar (2025)

FSA, Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) (2025)

EDI, Student Loan Forgiveness Statistics (2025)

FSA, Do I Need to Recertify My IDR Plan Every Year? (2025)

EDI, Average Student Loan Debt by Year (2025)

FSA, Announcements (2025)

College Board, Trends in Student Aid (2025)

NerdWallet, Student Loan Interest Rates (2025)

BestColleges, Average Monthly Student Loan Payment (2025)

FSA, Federal Student Loan Portfolio (2025)

FSA, PSLF Data (2025)

FSA, Federal Student Aid Posts Updated Reports to FSA Data Center (2025)

FSA, Student Loan Delinquency and Default (2025)