Using the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, I broke out student debt levels by student debt percentiles below. This is a more comprehensive look at student debt trends than the medians and means you usually see. (Hover your cursor over the graph to get a list of values at each percentile.)

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The graph shows that the starting point for student indebtedness keeps moving lower and lower in the distribution. In 1989, positive student indebtedness starts at the eighty-fourth percentile, meaning 16% of young families carried student debt. By 2016, the starting point was the fifty-sixth percentile, indicating that 44% of young families carried student debt.