Home mortgages are households’ largest source of debt. And since 2010, student loans have been their second-largest source of debt.

The FRED Blog has discussed student loan and household debt before, in relation to overall economic activity. Today, we compare student loan debt with three other categories of consumer credit:

• Revolving consumer credit, mostly credit card debt (blue area)
• Automobile loans (green area)
• Student loans (orange area)
• Other, non-revolving consumer credit (purple area)

The FRED graph above shows quarterly data on each category from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The units are in millions of dollars, but are presented in stacked areas to easily show each category as a percentage of the entire pool of consumer credit.

Data on student loans, as a standalone category of consumer credit, has been reported only since 2006, so we can’t observe the rollout of the Federal Direct Student Loan Program in 1994. But the growing share of student loans, as a fraction of overall consumer credit, is easy to see: It’s risen from 20.6% in 2006 to 35.6% in 2024. Learn even more here.

How this graph was created: Search the alphabetical list of FRED releases for “Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States” and select “Quarterly: L.222 Consumer Credit.” Select the four series listed under the heading “Memo” naming the types of consumer loans and click “Add to Graph.” Use the “Format” tab to change the graph type to “Area” and the stacking option to “Percent.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.