The HELP student-debt numbers for 2019-20 are  out.

As ever there are anomalies which make year on year comparisons complicated. Hazel Ferguson from the Parliamentary Library explains it all here.

But the headline figures are screamers. There is $66.3bn in student debt on the Commonwealth’s books, with 2.85m individuals owing. The time it takes people who have paid off their entire loan has increased from 7.3 years in 2005-06 to 9.3y in 2019-20.