A stacked area chart showing student loans, in billions of dollars, between 2001 and 2021. The areas are colored based on loan type: federal subsidized loans, federal unsubsidized loans, Parent PLUS loans, Grad Plus loans, and nonfederal loans. The largest amount of nonfederal loans was issued in 2007, valued at $29 billion; since then, they’ve hovered between $10 billion and $15 billion a year. Federal loans take up the bulk of the loan value, particularly federal subsidized and federal unsubsidized loans, which grew over time until 2010. That year, subsidized loans amounted to about $50 billion, and unsubsidized loans were close to $60 billion. The PLUS loans together amounted to $22 billion. The total amount of loans issued began to decrease after that, driven primarily by drops in subsidized and unsubsidized loans. In 2021, only $15 billion in subsidized loans and $44 billion in unsubsidized loans were issued.