Many worry that student loans are a drag on the economy, particularly the housing market. Analyses from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, cited by leading economists, do not provide compelling evidence for this hypothesis. The New York Fed data contain no information about education. As a result, their analyses contrast the home ownership rate of student borrowers with that of an inappropriate comparison group: those who attended college debt-free and "those who never went to college". More complete data from researchers at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reveal a different story. The researchers combined credit reports with data on college attendance from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC). These NSC data are nearly a national census of college attendance and are used extensively by researchers. The NSC data include college enrollment information for all college students, not just those who borrow. The striking gap in homeownership is not between college-educated people who did and did not borrow, but between those with and without a college education. The deeply misleading graphs from the New York Federal Reserve have influenced the views of key economic thinkers and the public at large. The newer data also deliver a powerful, visual message: the college-educated--even those with student debt--are winners in our economy. Contains endnotes.