According to the Federal Reserve, student loans added up to $1.6 trillion in Q2 2023, making them the third largest category of U.S. household debt behind auto loans ($1.8 trillion) and mortgages ($12 trillion).

The current student debt figure represents a 40% increase from a decade ago, resulting in greater pressure for the federal government to do more to help debtors. For example, on Oct 4. 2023, the Biden administration announced an additional $9 billion in student debt cancellations, bringing the total relief amount to $127 billion.

With student debt becoming a broader social issue, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu has visualized data from the Education Data Initiative to show you the median debt per major for a bachelor’s degree in the country.

Poster Comment:

I have seen young girls with worthless degrees who owed $200,000 for a worthless degree. One such was flat chested, worked at a copy shop, lived at home and owed $200,000.