The fate of the US economy depends on the vibrancy of the American consumer — and therein lies a mystery. No one is really sure when the tens of millions of people with federal student loans will have to start paying back their obligations. The amounts involved are not small — there is $1.6tn of such debt outstanding and the government has suspended collections on the great bulk of it.
The American way of financing higher education has long been a drag on the nation’s economy. All that borrowed money helps push up the already exorbitant cost of a degree. Many students, particularly in minority communities, struggle for decades to escape their loan burdens.
But the story has taken an unlikely turn during the pandemic. US student borrowers still owe a lot, but pay very little. Federal student loan forbearance programmes remain in place more than two years after they were begun by the Trump administration in the early days of the pandemic.