Student debt has exploded since the last recession ended in 2009 with this year’s graduating class holding record levels of student loans.

Now there’s a way to keep an eye on the mounting liabilities in real time.

MarketWatch has created a national student loan debt clock that shows how higher education is adding an estimated $3,055 every second to academic IOUs.

“It’s not uncommon to hear that the growth in student loan debt is like a time bomb threatening to blow up the U.S. economy,” writes reporter Jillian Berman. “Now, you can watch it tick.”

Student debt has risen to a record $1.2 trillion, making it the most significant liability after home mortgages, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. MarketWatch’s student loan clock is modeled on the National Debt Clock, which shows how the U.S. government has racked up $18.1 trillion in liabilities on the backs of taxpayers.

“Skyrocketing college costs, cuts to public funding for higher education, stagnant incomes and the growth in the college-going population are largely to blame for the uptick in outstanding student loans over the past decade,” Berman writes.

The growing student load has been blamed for holding back a recovery in the housing market, as many people in the millennial generation delay marriage or getting their first home.

Households with student debt of $25,000 to $50,000 are less likely to own their own homes than people with smaller financial burdens, said Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

That amount of debt offsets any positive effect that a college degree has on household income for people 25 to 34 years old, according to research from the New York-based bank. For some potential home buyers, it's better to have no college education and no student-loan burden.

“The share of young households with a large amount of student debt has been rising fast,” Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman, said in a report obtained by Newsmax Finance. “The impact of student debt is more pronounced on young individuals.”

The bank based its analysis on 2013 data in the Survey of Consumer Finance, which the Federal Reserve publishes every three years.