You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.

A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that rising student debt levels are a substantial contributor to the decline in home ownership among young Americans.

Annual public college tuition on average rose $3,843, or 81 percent, between 2001 and 2009, according to the study. Rising tuition in turn accounted for $1,628 of the increase in average student debt per capita among 24-year-olds during that time period.

The report found that increasing student debt and tuition "can explain between 11 and 35 percent of the observed approximate eight-percentage-point decline in home ownership for 28- to 30-year-olds over 2007-15."

The New York Fed in April released a study on the same topic, but with a different outcome.

That study, which looked at somewhat older cohorts, found that people's level of education is a bigger predictor of home ownership than student debt. Home ownership rates are higher among college graduates and those who have pursued credentials beyond an associate degree, according to the research, regardless of how much debt they took on.