Though millennials catch the most flack for taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay for worthless college degrees that do little to improve their financial prospects in the "real world," for older Americans who take out loans to finance their education later in life, the repercussions can be ten times worse.
While it might not seem like much compared with the overall $1.4 trillion mountain of student loan debt rattling around the American economy, according to the Wall Street Journal, Americans over the age of 60 are struggling to pay down an aggregate $86 billion in student loan debt.
Student loan borrowers in their 60s, on average, owed $33,800 in 2017, up 44% from 2010, according to data compiled by credit-reporting firm TransUnion. Total student loan debt for people aged 60 and older rose 161% between 2010 and 2017, the biggest increase of any age group.
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4 comments:
Now the Government wants to give illegals free college and now all who wants college gets it free. This including Maryland and Wicomico County. I busted my ass and paid for my college until I was 65 working 2 & 3 jobs and these lazy bums want it for free using my tax dollars which I could use for Medical expenses since I am retired. Socialism is here.
If you can't pay for college, don't go. Why does anyone think that they don't have to pay for it? Borrow money for a car...you have to pay it back. Borrow money for a house...you have to pay it back. College is no different. If you can't pay it back, don't borrow it. A loan is a loan, not a gift. I have no sympathy for young people, or old people, that say they can't pay back what they "borrowed" from someone else. And I am one of those old people that took out a student loan in my thirties when I attended college, and paid it all back....early! Never thought about defaulting, or seeing how long I could stretch out, or avoid, making payments. I knew it was an albatross on my financial future, and got rid of it as soon as I could.
Apparently many people looked at college as some kind of vacation on borrowed money. They didn't learn enough to know how to pay off a loan. Stupid before, stupid after. And everyone else who worked their way through college, or paid off their loans, is expected to feel sorry for them. I, for one, do not.
Everyone who borrows more money than they can, or are willing to, pay back, are deadbeats. That the borrowed money was for a college education, makes no difference. The ones that default on student loans, are most likely defaulting on other loans. Guess what? I have a close family member that falls in that exact category. The student loan is going the same way as the credit card debt. And I paid ALL of the entire college tuition with my earnings and savings, no debt! (the student loan debt was for "living expenses" to live off campus) Guess who's crying they can't pay it back?
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