Two countries. Same choice. Different answers.
🇺🇸
United States
$1,840,000,000,000
total student loan debt · growing
$1,905 added every second
🇩🇪
Germany
$0
no tuition · no student debt system
university is a public good
$1,905
added every second
44.6M
Americans with federal student debt
$39,075
average balance per borrower
9.6%
90+ days delinquent (Q4 2025)
47%
of 2024 grads left school with debt
16%
of borrowers 60+ days behind
~0%
German graduates with tuition debt
Germany didn't abolish tuition because it's rich. It abolished tuition in 2014 because it concluded that charging for education was socially corrosive — that a degree becoming a debt sentence was bad for the country, not just bad for students. The US spends more per student than Germany and produces worse outcomes. The gap between these two clocks is a policy choice, not an economic inevitability.
→ Foundation's Education proposal: learning without a bill attached
U.S. Student Debt Accumulation — 2006 to Now
US total: Federal Reserve consumer credit data, Q4 2025 ($1.84T). Growth: Education Data Initiative ($60.086B/year).
Delinquency: NY Fed Q4 2025 (9.6%); Urban Institute Nov 2025 (16% 60+ days). Germany: DAAD / federal tuition abolition 2014.