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RESEARCH Student Loan Payments

Evidence from 4 Million Families

Student loan debt is the fastest growing household debt category, having more than doubled over the last ten years to $1.5 trillion in 2018, second only to mortgage debt, and affecting 45 million borrowers. 尽管高等教育学位在一生中所带来的经济回报通常超过了成本, roughly 22 percent of student loan borrowers are in default. As a result, 一些人将“学生贷款危机”定义为学生贷款偿还危机,而不是学生贷款债务危机. 自2009年以来,出现了一系列以收入为导向的还款选择,通过更好地将还款义务与家庭的支付能力结合起来,减轻了家庭的经济负担.

决策者提出有希望的解决方案的能力的一个主要复杂因素是缺乏关于家庭(不仅仅是个人借款人)如何承担学生贷款偿还负担以及学生贷款债务对其他财务结果的影响的数据. 核心挑战是,学生贷款支付和债务信息很难与其他财务结果结合起来观察, such as income, spending, and other debt payments, and certainly not on a high-frequency basis for large samples.

With this report, 12bet官方研究所旨在描述学生贷款支付如何适应家庭更大的财务生活. We offer the debate insight into a new, high-frequency cash flow perspective on student loan payments and how they relate to a family’s income, liquid assets, spending, and other debt payments. This perspective, 基于2012年10月至2018年7月期间观察到的3900万个大通支票账户的学生贷款支付交易, is novel not just for its large sample size, but also its visibility into private and federal student loan payments (including any fees and fines), alongside income, spending, liquid assets, and other debt payments. In addition, this data asset is distinct in terms of its family perspective, 这就允许我们考虑到一个家庭代表其他借款人支付多笔学生贷款的可能性. This is an important, but often overlooked or hidden piece of the student loan repayment picture, 考虑到大约19%的个人报告接受了他人的帮助来偿还学生贷款.

With this new data asset, we aim to answer five key questions:

  • What share of take-home income are families spending on student loan payments?
  • How does the financial burden of student loan payments differ across demographic groups?
  • How consistently do families repay student loans, and how volatile are repayment amounts?
  • In what ways do student loan payments differ from other types of loan payments, notably auto loan and mortgage payments?
  • How do student loan payments fluctuate with income, liquid assets, and expenditures?

Finding One: The typical family’s median student loan payment is $179 per month or 5.5 percent of take-home income in months with positive payments. One in four families spend more than 11 percent of their take-home income on student loans.

Finding Two: Younger and low-income families are most burdened by student loan payments, but there is no material difference in burden by male versus female account holders.

Finding Three: While overall 54 percent of families make consistent student loan payments, 与高收入家庭(63%)相比,低收入家庭(44%)不太可能持续偿还贷款。.

Finding Four: Among families actively paying multiple loans, 学生贷款持续还款的比例低于汽车贷款(10个百分点)和抵押贷款(6个百分点)。.

Finding Five: Income, liquid assets, 在开始支付学生贷款之前,支出急剧增加,而在停止支付学生贷款之后,支出则急剧减少.

Data

For this study, 我们从12bet官方(JPMorgan Chase)家庭的总体样本中收集了几个不同的数据资产,这些家庭从他们的12bet官方支票账户中支付学生贷款.

我们从2012年10月至2018年7月期间拥有大通支票账户的3900万个家庭开始. From this universe, 我们构建了一个包含3000万个“核心”账户的子集,我们观察到这些账户有足够的活动,可以将其视为家庭的主要金融工具. From these core accounts, we identified 4.6 million families who have made at least one student loan payment out of their Chase checking account.

The data assets used for analysis were created from this base of 4.6 million families. Each sample uses different inclusion criteria and serves a different analytical purpose, described in the below graphic. For additional details, see the Data Asset and Methodology section.

 

Conclusion

Taken together, our insights from this new, high-frequency lens into student loan repayment behavior have important implications for policymakers, financial institutions, higher education institutions, and employers. 有相当一部分人仍然背负着学生贷款的沉重负担, especially younger and lower-income account-holders, despite the availability of income-driven repayment programs. In particular, student loan payments are sensitive to large income changes, and may lack sufficient mechanisms to adjust payments to accommodate income fluctuations. 到目前为止,学生贷款的支付比汽车贷款和抵押贷款的支付更不稳定,更不稳定, 与其他类型的贷款相比,家庭可能会受益于更宽松的助学贷款偿还. Still, 这种低一致性的负面影响是否会超过更宽松的好处,还有待观察. Overall, 也许有更好的方法来构建或实施学生贷款偿还计划,以确保家庭不会负担过重,并能够持续支付. 重新审视承保和联邦学生援助的标准和考虑可能有助于解决学生贷款偿还问题的根源. More broadly, colleges and universities, employers, and financial institutions have a role to play in helping borrowers manage their student loan debt.

Authors

Diana Farrell

Founding and Former President & CEO

Erica Deadman

Consumer Research Lead

Fiona Greig

Former Co-President