<P> In the United States of America, the "Congress created a rule called the' Cohort Default rate' . Annually the Department of Education evaluates the proportions of students who have received student loans and have withdrawn from a college, and have a defaulted on their federal government backed loans ." If that nonpayment (default) rate is too high, the college will be refused the privilege of having government financial aid available to their students . According to Adam Looney, and Constantine Yannelis with the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, in 2011, "borrowers at for - profit and 2 - year institutions represented almost half of student - loan borrowers leaving school and starting to repay loans, and accounted for 70 percent of student loan defaults ." This rule was an instantaneous achievement,' there were more than fifteen hundred for profit colleges were pushed out of the system' . Colleges have to change their funding habits to get in line with the government guidelines . Many colleges are continuously forced to lower their nonpayment rates, down ." The number of defaulters has not changed, it is just the way the government tracks them . </P> <P> Many factors are accountable for student debt . The growing problem of student debt has become more prominent in the future decade, inspiring numerous documentaries that examine the causes and effects . One huge factor is amount of interest on the loans . Another factor is due to the new guidelines developed by the federal government . There are now new rules deciding who can borrow, as well as how much debt they can take on . Colleges and universities have been increasing the costs for students to attend their schools subsequently increasing the amount of debt these students take on as student loans . Reports have shown that borrowers who finished college in the early 1990s were able to maintain managing their student loans without an enormous burden . The average debt has increased 58% since over the past seven years . The debt for students in the United States has risen from $17,233 in 2005 to $27,253 in 2012 . Some blame the economy for the debt increases, but in the same 7 - year period credit card debt and auto debt have decreased . According to the Student Debt Crisis, within the past three decades the cost of attaining a college degree has drastically increased by more than 1,000 percent . If student debt had stayed constant with inflation since 1992, graduates would not be facing such burdens by student loans . </P> <P> There are two types of loans student borrow in the US: Federal loans or Private loans . Federal loans have a fixed interest rate, usually lower than private loans' interest, set annually by the congress . The direct subsidized loan with the maximum amount of $5,500 has an interest rate of 4.45%, while the direct plus loan with the maximum amount of $20,500 has an interest rate of 7% . As for private loans, there are more options like fixed interest rate, variable interest rate, and income based monthly plans whose interest rates vary depending on the lender, credit history and cosigners . The average interest rate for a private loan in 2017 was 9.66% . The Economist reported in June 2014 that U.S. student loan debt exceeded $1.2 trillion with over 7 million debtors in default . In 2014, there was approximately $1.3 trillion of outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. that affected 44 million borrowers who had an average outstanding loan balance of $37,172 . </P> <P> The interest rates are a major factor in the alarming debt numbers, however, the booming of prices of college is another major factor for US tremendous student debt . The Public universities increased their fees by a total of 27% over the five years ending in 2012, or 20% adjusted for inflation . Public university students paid an average of almost $8,400 annually for in - state tuition, with out - of - state students paying more than $19,000 . For two decades ending in 2012, college costs rose 1.6% more than inflation each year . Government funding per student fell 27% between 2007 and 2012 . Student enrollments rose from 15.2 million in 1999 to 20.4 million in 2011, but fell 2% in 2012 . Bloomberg reported in July 2014 that: "The biggest growth in the program came in the past decade, as student debt rose an average of 14 percent a year, to $966 billion in 2012 from $364 billion in 2004, according to New York Fed data ." </P>

What is the total amount of student loan debt
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