In the past decade, student loan debt in the United States has swelled to over $1.5 trillion, and now is the second-largest debt consumers hold, behind mortgages. According to Student Loan Hero, and more than 44 million Americans are carrying student loan debt, and the cost of college has doubled since the 1980’s.

Student loan debt is keeping people from life goals, home ownership and other opportunities. In fact, nearly 40% of college graduates surveyed by Freedom Debt Relief thought that their college education was not worth what it cost.

Factoring into that statistic is that student loan debt continues to burden Americans financially and emotionally. Of those carrying debt, more than a fifth – 21% – carry student loan debt. That’s on top of the fact that 46% carry credit card debt, 28% carry auto loan debt and 31% carry a mortgage.

The effects of debt reach far into Americans’ lives, coloring not only bank balances and people’s thoughts on the worth of their college education. Forty-four percent of people find it difficult to talk about their debt with friends and family. In fact, 26% would rather go to the dentist than talk about their debt and finances. Another 21% would even rather go to the DMV…without an appointment.

Methodology: Freedom Debt Relief commissioned Atomik Research to run a general population online survey of 2,008 adults in the United States. The margin of error fell within +/- 2 percentage points with a confidence interval of 95 percent. The fieldwork took place between April 25 and 27, 2019. Atomik Research is an independent creative market research agency. Download the raw data.