The level of overall household debt was $221 billion higher than a year earlier in the second quarter of 2015, though it remains 6.5 percent below the peak of $12.68 trillion reached in the third quarter of 2008, the report showed. The figure hasn’t been below 4 percent since 2007.

The amount of new mortgages has also increased for four straight quarters, the New York Fed said, after dropping to a 14-year low of $286 billion in last year’s second quarter.

Overall household debt – which includes mortgages, student loans, auto loans and credit cards – stood at $11.85 trillion in the second quarter, little changed from the first.

The drop in the second quarter happened in spite of the Americans taking increased number of new mortgages, either for refinancing their old loans or purchasing new homes.

The new data is fueling concerns among those outside the student loan industry that student debt will crimp economic growth for years to come as households cut back on spending and investments to service their growing pile of college debt. For example, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ data shows that total student debt is slightly higher, at $1.27 trillion. Average debt burdens have almost doubled over the past decade. “There are a couple things you can not run away from in the U.S. – taxes and student loan debt”, he says. “But the reality is that millions of borrowers are needlessly in distress”, said Rohit Chopra, formerly the top student loan official at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “This implies that among loans in the repayment cycle delinquency rates are roughly twice as high”.

“He’s getting all the attention he needs without my help”. The department, led by Secretary Arne Duncan, has been pushing its loan servicers to improve their treatment of borrowers. There were $466 billion in new mortgage originations and just under half of the Q2 strength in originations were driven by borrowers with credit scores over 780. A total of about $73 billion in auto-loan-backed bonds have been sold this year, according to Bank of America Corp., which expects full-year bond sales from vehicle finance firms to reach $125 billion, compared with $101 billion in 2014.