US Student Debt Just Hit a Mind-Bending Milestone—So We Made This Animation

Can we afford to cancel our tab? Watch.

Mother Jones illustration

One point seven trillion. That’s the amount of outstanding student debt in the United States—for now.

But don’t blink: That number is ballooning even as you read this sentence. Since the Great Recession took hold in 2008, student debt has been among the fastest-growing types of debt for everyday Americans. It’s growing faster than mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt.

And because we live in polarized nation, we can’t agree on what to do about it. Republicans generally want to stay the course, which is to say, let the debtors sink or swim without any additional lifelines. Meanwhile, student debt is top-of-the-mind for Democrats, who are struggling to reach some kind of consensus in the weeks leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration. Biden supports modest debt forgivenessnamely $10,000 per borrower. (With more than 40 million people eligible, the cost of that plan would be north of $400 billion.) But progressive leaders don’t think that’s nearly enough. The familiar voices of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have called for a much bolder plan: the wholesale cancellation of, if not all, then most student debt.

The costs will be enormous for any action, or lack thereof, and these unfathomably large figures are anything but human-scale. But we know a thing or two about visualizing extreme sums of money. For a sense of just how much is involved here, and how it compares with other mind-blowing sums—by comparison, $1 million per day since the birth of Jesus adds up to a measly $737 billion—watch our animation above. It’s our largest visualization to date.

For the millions of folks out there struggling with student loans, viewer discretion is advised.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate