While it is relatively well-known that there are about 28 million federal student loan borrowers in the US, and as we first covered a year ago, about 15% of these are deeply delinquent, what may not be known is that of the total borrowers, a tiny 40%, or 10.8 million of lenders are actually current and paying. Of the remaining 17 million, 7.9 million are still in school (and facing disastrous job prospects which almost certainly means millions more added to the delinquent list upon graduation), while a whopping 9 million, or almost the same number as those who currently repaying, are either in default, in their grace period, or in deferment or some other form of forebearance.

Said otherwise, of the 28 million Americans with federal student loans, 60%, or 17 million, don't pay the US government a single cent!

Hopefully this highlights just how acute the severity of the student loan bubble is when stripped of all spin and mitigating rhetoric.