Student Loan Delinquency Rate (90+ days)
Student loans 90+ days past due
What is the current Student Loan Delinquency Rate (90+ days)?
The student loan 90+ day serious delinquency rate stood at 9.57% in Q4 2024, according to the NY Fed Consumer Credit Panel. This captures borrowers at least 3 months behind on payments — a threshold that typically triggers collections activity and credit score damage. Source: NY Fed Consumer Credit Panel / Equifax.
Student loan serious delinquency jumped from 0.53% to 9.57% in a single year after the payment pause ended, returning to roughly pre-pandemic levels.
The payment pause on federal student loans lasted three and a half years. When it ended, the delinquency data disappeared too — the Department of Education stopped reporting defaulted balances to credit bureaus during the on-ramp period, and the NY Fed's series flatlined near zero from Q4 2022 through Q4 2024.
Then the reporting resumed. In Q1 2025, the series jumped from 0.53% to 7.74%. By Q4 2025 it had climbed to 9.57% — nearly 1 in 10 student loan borrowers is now 90 or more days behind. Before the pandemic, the rate averaged 10 to 11%. What we're watching is a year's worth of distress showing up in one quarter's data release.
The borrowers falling behind are disproportionately those who already owed more than they could repay. Graduates in for-profit programs. Borrowers with partial degrees and no credential. Parents who took out PLUS loans against retirement they will now need. The income-driven repayment options that were supposed to absorb the shock are caught up in litigation over the SAVE plan, which left borrowers with monthly payments they didn't expect and couldn't budget for.
The knock-on effects are already visible in adjacent series. Credit Card Delinquency and Auto Loan Serious Delinquency both climbed sharply in the same quarters student loan reporting resumed. Borrowers triaging a new monthly payment will stop paying something. The unsecured creditors are seeing the result.
Explore Further
How has Student Loan Delinquency Rate (90+ days) changed over time?
Most affected counties
Counties with the highest consumer credit distress scores in the County Distress Index.
Explore all 3,144 counties →| Period | Value | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
| Q4 2025 | 9.57% | +9.0 pts |
| Q3 2025 | 9.36% | +8.9 pts |
| Q2 2025 | 10.16% | +9.5 pts |
| Q1 2025 | 7.74% | +7.1 pts |
| Q4 2024 | 0.53% | −0.1 pts |
| Q3 2024 | 0.49% | −0.2 pts |
| Q2 2024 | 0.65% | +0.0 pts |
| Q1 2024 | 0.62% | −0.1 pts |
| Q4 2023 | 0.6% | −0.3 pts |
| Q3 2023 | 0.67% | −3.3 pts |
| Q2 2023 | 0.63% | −3.9 pts |
| Q1 2023 | 0.67% | −4.0 pts |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the student loan serious delinquency rate?
The student loan serious delinquency rate measures the share of student loan balances that are 90 or more days past due. As of Q4 2024, 9.57% of student loan balances were seriously delinquent, according to the NY Fed Consumer Credit Panel.
Why does student loan delinquency matter for financial distress?
Student loan delinquency signals that borrowers are struggling to meet basic debt obligations. When combined with rising delinquency in credit cards and auto loans, it indicates broad-based household financial stress tracked by the American Distress Index.
Where does the student loan delinquency data come from?
This data comes from the NY Fed Consumer Credit Panel, based on Equifax credit bureau records. It is published quarterly as part of the Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit.
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