We previously wrote about the June 2014 Brookings Institution report which suggested that charges coming from various quarters, including the CFPB, that student loan debt is causing young adults to postpone home ownership are overblown. The report found that the typical household with debt is no worse off today than a generation ago, with increases in lifetime earnings more than offsetting increases in debt, and monthly payment burdens kept manageable by longer repayment periods.
The report’s authors recently updated the report with data that was not previously available. More specifically, the 2014 report was based only on data through 2010, the last year for which data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) was available when the report was prepared. The update uses recently released 2013 SCF data. Most significantly, the authors found that such data “confirmed that Americans who borrowed to finance their education are no worse today than they were a generation ago. Given the rising returns to postsecondary education, they are probably better off, on average.”
The myths about student loan debt are also the target of a new website launched by the Consumer Bankers Association. The website includes a page entitled “Myth vs. Facts” and a page that provides information about the private student loan market.
