Consumer Debt Surges In April As Student Debt Soars

At a time when conventional media “wisdom” claims that US consumers are panicking ahead of a looming recession and aggressively reducing their spending, moments ago we got the latest consumer credit data from the Fed which confirmed none of that. In fact, one month after consumer credit came in line with expectations, the latest update of the Fed’s G 98 statement showed that in April, consumer credit growth more than doubled, from a revised $8.6 billion to $17.9 billion, the single biggest monthly increase of 2025 and the second highest going back to November 2023. In other words, far from being concerned about a recession, the US consumer is doing what they do best: spend. 

The composition was familiar: revolving credit (i.e., credit card debt) rose by $7.6BN, much more than the $1.7BN increase in March and the highest since December. 

Meanwhile, non-revolving credit jumped by $8.3 billion, the second highest monthly increase since June 2023.

Why? Well, the answer is rather bizarre because while auto loans shrank by $10 billion in Q1, the biggest quarterly decline in a decade, it was student debt, that debt which is now causing widespread defaults as millions can not afford to pay it as the moratorium is over, that unexpectedly surged by $22BN in Q1 to $1,797 billion, a new all time high.

And as an aside, for those asking whether the recent Fed rate cuts have translated into lower interest APRs on credit cards, the answer is in the next chart. Unfortunately, the answer is no, because as we said back in September while the Fed is slashing rates, none of this is translating into lower rates on consumer liabilities. 

So how realistic is it that in a time when millions of former “students” are about to start defaulting en masse, that it is student loans which are again propelling consumer spending, we keep a close eye on this series because while many expect that the student loan bubble bursting will accelerate the recession, we may be getting just the opposite as Trump takes another page from the Biden playbook and starts firehosing “student” loans to anyone with a pulse who can fog a mirror.