Today’s market size is the amount owed in the United States for loans taken to finance higher education. The figures, which come from reports produced by the Federal Reserve Banking system, appear in an interesting article about the opportunity costs of having a large part of the younger generation beginning its productive life carrying a significant debt load. This fact may begin to explain the decline in first-time home purchases as well as declining numbers of new business start-up, two activities that require a population with more debt capacity than young people in the United Sates have these days.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2003 and 2013
Market size: $300 billion and $1.1 trillion respectively
Source: Phyllis Korkki, “Ripple Effects From Rising Student Debt,” The New York Times, May 25, 2014, pages B6.
Original source: Professor Brent W. Ambrose of Pennsylvania State University and Larry Cordell and Shuwei Ma of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
Posted on May 30, 2014