Something unusual happened with the nation’s student loan debt the last quarter: It went down, and by a record amount.

Student loan borrowers owed $27.8 billion less in the third quarter than they did in the second, the Federal Reserve said in a report Tuesday. While total student loan debt has fallen a few times since required payments on federal loans were paused during the pandemic, it was by far the largest drop since the Fed began tracking student debt in 2006, as the chart below shows.

The sudden plummet highlighted some favorable trends for student loan borrowers, but also, the vast amount of debt that still remains. It fell 1.6%, leaving $1.7 trillion of debt on the books.

Some major factors pushing student loan debt down: President Joe Biden’s administration began processing $39 billion in debt forgiveness for certain borrowers. Student borrowers also repaid billions on their own this August and September, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:paying 🃏downℱ loans ahead of the October end of꧑ the three-and-a-half-year pandemic🃏 pause on required payments for federal loans. 

More student loan debt reductions may be coming. The Biden administration is in the midst of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:drafting a new federal l♍oan forgiveness program, set to be finalized next year. The administration’s first effort at broad loan relief failed this summer when it was shot down by the Supreme Court, but the government has continued forgiving loans for smaller, specific groups of borrowers.

In the meantime, many borrowers, particularly younger ones, are being 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:financially squeezed ಞby loan payment🅺s while also absorbing recent increases in the cost of living, although there's some indication that 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:ꦅmany borrowers are taking their payments in stride.

Other trends were business-as-usual, with total debt, including things like credit cards and personal loans, rising a relatively modest $9 billion, in line with expectations of economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal.