- Over 8 million student-loan borrowers aged 50 and older hold 22% of the federal debt load, per AARP.
- It's affecting their life decisions — and those of their children.
- Older borrowers have seen Social Security benefits seized and retirements delayed because of their student debt.
- This article is part of The Cost of Inequity, a series examining the systemic issues that disproportionately impact marginalized and disenfranchised groups.
Diane Hankle, 57, has a nearly $90,000 student-debt load she's been paying off for over three decades.
As a retired government worker for the state of Illinois, Hankle attempted to get her loans forgiven through Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which wipes out student debt for public servants after ten years of qualifying payments. But issues with counting her payments accurately pushed her forgiveness timeline back, and she's now looking at monthly bills for the foreseeable future.
"I have a son that's a junior in high school who will be going to college next year, so we'll have college expenses next year," Hankle told Insider. "It's terrible that I would still have to have this $86,000 show up on my credit report."
She said she's going to do everything in her power to ensure her son does not need to take out student loans himself. He agreed to go to junior college for two years, because as the sole provider for him, Hankle cannot afford to cover four years of university tuition on her own.
Three decades is a long time to being paying off a debt, but some Americans have been doing it for longer and are struggling to live under the growing $1.7 trillion student debt crisis. An estimate last year from AARP found 8.4 million student-loan borrowers aged 50 and older hold 22% of the federal student debt load, and according to Education Department data, 2.3 million borrowers aged 62 and older have an average balance of $37,739.
For older borrowers in particular, the consequences of big student debt loads late in life can be dire. Social security benefits can be withheld and retirements can be pushed back, and some borrowers see the only way out of debt through loan forgiveness or death.
Social security benefits can be withheld and retirements can be pushed back, and some borrowers see the only way out of debt through loan forgiveness or death.
Whether they took out student loans for themselves or for their children, debt for older Americans is a growing problem.
AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in 2019 that stagnant wages and rising tuition costs could be factors as to why student debt has become such a burden for older age groups. And given the difficulty with discharging student loans through bankruptcy, should a borrower fall behind on payments, they could be subject to not only wage garnishment, but withholding of Social Security benefits, as well.
In fiscal year 2015, nearly 114,000 borrowers aged 50 and older had their Social Security benefits seized, per the Government Accountability Office, and a 2019 AARP analysis suggested borrowers who had to push off saving for retirement because of their student-debt loads had to work two to seven years longer to get the same amount of savings as their peers without student debt.
And younger generations could soon be feeling the impact, as well. A report from Urban Institute found the age of borrowers is steadily on the rise, with the share of 35-to-44-year-olds with debt nearly doubling between 2007 and 2019. Kristin Blagg, one of the authors of the report, told Insider that "this is a group we should be concerned about."
"From the research that I've done, there seemed to be some folks who took out loans back in the 90s or the early 2000s that hadn't been able to pay it off yet," Blagg said. "And some of them don't appear to be making much progress on their loans, they may have had interest build up over time and just haven't been able to get momentum on actually paying down that debt."
"You can imagine that might be a substantial drag for them in terms of the other things that they might want to invest in," she added.
'I've done my duty to the student-loan program many times over'
David Wise, 59, originally borrowed $79,000 in student debt, has paid back $175,000 of it over four decades, but still has a balance over $200,000. He previously told Insider that a career change and a divorce caused his income to change dramatically, and he ended up defaulting on his debt, causing his wages to be garnished while he was racking up interest and penalty fees.
Now, the only way he can see his loans going away is when he dies.
"I have no motivation whatsoever to pay anything more than I've already paid," Wise said. "I've done my duty to the student-loan program many times over."
Some lawmakers advocating for student-debt relief and forgiveness have recognized the burden that falls on older Americans. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — a leading voice in the $50,000 student-debt forgiveness push — previously told Insider those borrowers, in particular, require relief.
"Student debt isn't just crushing young people: 6.3 million borrowers ages 50 to 64 and nearly a million people over 65 are still paying for a loved one's education or their own," Warren said. "Student debt is also one of the biggest contributors to the rise in the amount of debt seniors hold overall."