Recent research is clearly showing that student loan debt is rising; a trend that analysts say is a cause for concern. Forty million Americans are now saddled with student debt, a number that has grown monumentally in the last several years. These educated people owe a combined $1.2 trillion dollars to student loan lenders, which includes the federal government is many cases.

It is not just the number of students that use loans to fund higher education degrees that is on the increase; the amount of money that each student is borrowing is also on the rise. From 2004 to 2012 the amount of students owing more than $40,000 in student debt increased fourteen percentage points to reach 18% of all student loan debt.

Experienced fair debt collection attorneys know that the ability to pay on this debt will be a growing problem for Americans when their student loans enter the repayment period. Right now, roughly forty percent of student loan debt is not ripe for repayment; the borrowers are either still in school or in a period of deferment after having graduated from college. What happens when these loans become due is concerning many people across the nation.

Another concern is whether or not the statistics accurately reflect the student loan crisis. Specifically, delinquency rates are measured by looking at borrowers that have entered repayment. But as is stated above, roughly forty percent of student loan borrowers have not yet entered repayment. Such indicates that the rates of delinquency and defaults could sharply rise each year.

Whether or not college education should cost so much money is a topic for a different debate. The fact remains that the cost is high and taking on debt is typically the only way most students can afford college. College degrees take longer to earn now, and with the less than lustrous economy in the United States people with mounting debt face harder chances of finding employment with sufficient wages to afford paying on their loans.

Even people that have received advanced degrees in medicine and the law may find it harder to pay on their student loan debt even though these people typically earn higher wages. Then factor in the students that did not finish their education and the possibility that they attended a costlier for-profit college.

These folks will have a much harder time paying of their student loans. The current seventeen percent of student debt holders that are a month behind in their payments could swell enormously. If you factor out the debtors that are not in repayment, around thirty-one percent are a month behind in their payments. How much these figures will grow is a story that only time can tell.

If you or anyone you know has been subjected to an abusive, deceptive, or unfair debt collection effort by any business or firm, contact WeStopDebtCollectors.com Consumer Law Center for a FREE evaluation to learn how you can protect your rights and get your attorneys’ fees paid.