Report: Student debt to hit 7.7 percent of U.S. debt by 2020

Recent research by the Council on Foreign Relations predicted outstanding student debt to total $1.4 trillion by 2020, accounting for 7.7 percent of gross national debt. If student loan debt does continues to rise at the fast rate, debt collection agents may be pursuing many more defaulters in the future.

 The Council on Foreign Relations attributed the rising rates to laws passed in 2008 and 2010 that installed the U.S. government as the only supplier of federal student loans, as opposed to their past role as guarantor. The group claimed that the 7.7 percent debt rate is 6.3 percentage points higher than it would have been had the laws not passed. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently released information noting that nearly 40 percent of student loan debt is held by citizens under 30 years of age, followed by people between the ages of 30 and 39, with 26.9 percent of student loan debt. The source also cited the average loan balance per borrower to be $23,300.