CFPB: “A few weeks ago, we released new estimates on the size of the student loan market, which is approaching $1.2 trillion, with federal student loans crossing the $1 trillion mark. While there’s been a lot of discussion about changes to federal student loan interest rates on new loans, many of you have asked: what’s happening with the trillion that’s already been borrowed? We took a closer look and here’s what we found: there are over 7 million borrowers in default on a federal or private student loan. We also estimate that roughly a third of Federal Direct Loan Program borrowers have chosen alternative repayment plans to lower their payments. To learn more, we decided to analyze data released from the Department of Education, pulled from the National Student Loan Data System. We took a close look at the Federal Direct Loan and the Federal Family Educational Loan (FFEL) Programs. Federal loans also include the campus-based Perkins Loan program, which represent less than 1% of the total outstanding. The data below represent loan status as of June 2013.”