The feds had better get it quick. More and more senior citizens still owe outstanding loans. In fact, $36 Billion is owed by seniors in outstanding loans. Some of those loans are from original college days. Others are from going back to school, in hopes up upgrading job skills. Still other debt comes from co-signing for kids and grand kids. Filing bankruptcy doesn’t help. You can’t throw college debt into the dissolve pile.
New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old.
That even seniors remain saddled with student loans highlights what a growing chorus of lawmakers, economists and financial experts say has become a central conflict in the nation’s higher education system: The long-touted benefits of a college degree are being diluted by rising tuition rates and the longevity of debt.
