Haunted by Student Debt to the Grave

[marmar]

Haunted by Student Debt to the Grave

Tuesday, 04 August 2015 09:28
By Mary Green Swig, Steven L. Swig and Roger Hickey, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed


It will not be news to 41 million Americans that this nation is in the middle of a student debt crisis. That's the number of people burdened by student loan payments. But many people, including many student debt holders, may be surprised to learn that people can be pursued for student debt even into their elder years.

In fact, the government is withholding Social Security payments for some retirees because their student loans have not been fully repaid. This is a growing problem that Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) have asked the government to study in greater depth.

"Garnishing Social Security benefits defeats the entire point of the program - that's why we don't allow banks or credit card companies to do it," said Sen. McCaskill. "Social Security is the sole means of retirement income for tens of millions of Americans, and allowing those benefits to be garnished to collect student loan debt cuts a dangerous hole in our safety net."

That is one problem with this practice. But, as we will see, there are others.

Many people will be surprised to learn that any seniors are still paying off their student debt. They are: 706,000 households headed by someone 65 or older are still paying off their student debts, according to a report by the GAO. Collectively these households owed $18.2 billion in 2013. That's six-and-a-half times as much as they owed in 2005, when these senior households' total debt obligation was "only" $2.8 billion. .....................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32193-haunted-by-student-debt-to-the-grave

[LWolf]

1. Selling our souls for an education.

[libodem]

2. Evil

And money is the root of all evil. Swear!

[burfman]

3. What happened? 40 years ago college was affordable for anyone that wanted to do it....

I can't remember who started it - perhaps both parties are guilty, but sometime after the 1973 oil crisis, the price of college along with health insurance started shooting up much faster than anything else.....and it doesn't look like anybody can or will stop it.....

[HereSince1628]

7. Well there was a period of hyper-inflation in the 80's...remember 15% mortgages?

And then there was the explosion in cost of transportation. I remember buying a new F-150 super-cab in 1978 for under $7000. I'm not even gonna get into the less than 40 cent a gallon gasoline, $300/year auto insurance, etc

And there was fear that Social Security would collapse before baby-boomers got there...so there was a need to make SS secure for parents of baby-boomers AND the baby-boomers (who didn't expect it to exist in 2016) wanted to have a cushion to invest toward private retirement...

And there was an explosion of healthcare costs as medicine went "high-tech".

And home prices exploded as baby-boomers left their 'starter-homes' and moved into McMansions...

People who worked in Higher Ed, expected, demanded, and some would say deserved, returns on their investments in advanced degrees so that they could live a middle class life in the ever expanding bubble.

Of course, all that fell to institutions in tuition and fees and the cost of borrowing to update and expand the bricks and mortar to deal with the expansion of college enrollement from the top 10% of HS grads to ~60% of HS grads and the chase of technology in multiple fields of education incumbered institutions with much borrowed debt, that required repayments at unfortunately high rates...

[hifiguy]

10. When I was going to the U of MN full time in the early-mid 1980s

tuition and fees were about $350 per quarter. Books added another 50-100 depending on the courses. I lived at home and incurred no debt getting my B.A.

Law school was another matter. But even back in 1985, my first year's tuition at Harvard was only $6,500 with books and living expenses adding about another $5000.

I cannot for the life of me understand the cost of legal education. All you need are a couple of buildings, a library and some professors. It's not like they have to build a particle accelerator like they do for the profs over in physics.

[Snobblevitch]

4. "...debt holders, may be surprised to learn that people can be pursued for student debt..."

Anybody who claims to be surprised did not read the contract on the student loans for which they signed.

The problem of student debt is not the debt so much as it is Big Education has taken over and has increased the cost of tuition much faster than the rate of inflation.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. kick

[derby378]

6. That's why I never took a student loan, and never intend to

I may not climb to any lofty height, but I will climb alone - without a student debt monkey on my back.

[Yavin4]

8. If you move out of the country, can they still collect?

Can they?

[DFW]

9. Here's a suggestion:

Pretend the student loans are Greece. Then the $18.2 billion suddenly becomes "only" $18.2 billion. Write the whole thing off. Lighten the financial burden on 700,000+ Americans who will then have more small change to pump into small businesses around the country.

The world would give up an ocean to be free of Greece's debt, which is a few dozen multiples of this amount. Write this sucker off, save the money we're spending to monitor 700,000 debtors, and say, "you're free!"

*POOF* As a nation, considering the size of our GDP, it won't hurt a bit.