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

Can we afford to cancel our tab? Watch.

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.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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