Americans owe more on student loans than on every credit card combined.

Name: Student loans (charted by MacroSnaps)
Creator: Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2026)
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Student loans$1.7tn(2024)Auto loans$1.6tn(2024)Credit cards$1.3tn(2024)

US consumer debt by type ($tn). Student loans were the smallest of the three in 2003; they have since overtaken both credit cards and car loans to reach about $1.7 trillion.

Why this is happening

College prices ran far ahead of inflation for two decades while federal loans were easy to draw, so students borrowed the difference.
Unlike a mortgage there is no asset to repossess and the debt is almost impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, so the balances simply stay on the books.
Wages for many graduates did not climb fast enough to clear the loans, so balances compound rather than shrink.

The take

A generation borrowed against future wages to buy education. The bet only pays if those wages rise enough, and for millions they have not.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2026)

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<a href="https://macrosnaps.app/c/us-student-debt">
  <img src="https://macrosnaps.app/charts/us-student-debt.png" alt="US consumer debt by type ($tn). Student loans were the smallest of the three in 2003; they have since overtaken both credit cards and car loans to reach about $1.7 trillion." width="640" style="max-width:100%;height:auto">
</a>
<p style="font:12px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif;color:#6b7280;max-width:640px">
  Chart: <a href="https://macrosnaps.app/c/us-student-debt">MacroSnaps</a>,
  <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2026).
</p>

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Cites MacroSnaps for the chart. For the numbers themselves, cite the source below.

MacroSnaps (2026). "Americans owe more on student loans than on every credit card combined." Edition No. 80, 29 September 2026. https://macrosnaps.app/c/us-student-debt

Permanent link: https://macrosnaps.app/c/us-student-debt

The underlying data

MacroSnaps drew this chart. The numbers in it are published by Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2026). Their terms, not ours, govern the underlying data.