(Bloomberg Business) -- To lenders, millennials are likeugly-looking fruit: They may appear suspect, but on the insidethey're just as good a bet as the next apple. That's roughlythe takeaway of a report published Wednesday by creditrating company TransUnion, which suggests young peoplewith student debt are not as risky an investment as they mayseem.

The company reviewed credit profiles for 6 millionpeople and found that having student loans did not preventthem from taking out other kinds of consumer debt in thelong run.

"Younger consumers are doing a really good job at managing othertypes of credit," says Charlie Wise, a vice president inTransUnion’s innovative solutions group. "This is asurprisingly credit active, credit hungry group that seems toperform well on those loans."

Part of the reason TransUnion would like banks to believethat they are underestimating young consumers is that thecompany is selling risk assessment products thatwill help identify worthy borrowers based on more than just animpassive credit score.

"There are a lot of consumers in their twenties that arenew enough to credit but haven’t established it, and therefore theyare on the outside looking in when it comes to consumer loans,"Wise says. "It’s missed opportunities. Just because you don’t havea credit score doesn’t mean you aren’t a good risk." For banks andother creditors to buy into the idea that they'remissing out on something, they need first to believe thatthere is a something to miss out on.

Still, the data back up that logic. The study lookedat people who entered student debt repayment – which normallycoincides with leaving college – in 2005, 2009, and 2012 andcompared them with others their age who did not have collegeloans. People with student debt were less likely to have autoloans right after leaving school than those without collegeloans, but the student debtors caught up with their peerswithin a couple years for each of the three graduationyears.

People who started repaying student loans in 2005 and 2009were even more likely to have credit cards thanthose without student debt. People who began repaying in2012 were initially less likely to have credit cards but werematching their peers within two years.

The home loan picture was a little less rosy. All threegroups of student borrowers did inch closer to the mortgage ratesof their unencumbered peers over time, but not by much.

The single most encouraging chart of all, for creditors andmillennials alike, is the one below. People who have student loanswere no worse than people without it at managing theirother debt. The youngest student debtors who alsohad credit cards and auto loans were actually less likelythan rest of their age group to be 60 or more days lateon payments. TransUnion says that delinquencies on mortgageswere identical for both groups.

The message for young people, Wise says, is that "they may beunderestimating their own capabilities." If you can stomachthe anxiety of more debt, it can probably stomach the anxiety ofyou.

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.