Many over 50 are still saddled with student loans

[OhioChick]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by DonViejo (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Newsnet5.com

Jul 22, 2014

Lingering student-loan debt — which in recent years has been a drag on the economy as borrowers delay big-ticket purchases such as homes and cars — is beginning to affect millions of people as they head toward retirement.

More than 16 percent of the nearly $1.2 trillion in outstanding student-loan debt in the nation is held by people over 50, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

"It's one of the largest economic issues of our time, and it's not just a young person's issue," said Natalia Abrams of the advocacy group StudentDebtCrisis.org.

Many of the borrowers have taken out loans later in life, often for retraining to stay afloat in a changing economy. Some wound up on the hook when they co-signed or took out loans for children and grandchildren.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/financial-fitness/many-over-50-are-still-saddled-with-student-loans

[daleanime]

1. Kick....

[rickyhall]

2. I'm one of them and it'll eat my Social Security. Happy happy joy joy

[Iamthetruth]

6. I am not judging

Did you defer the loans? I had student loans but had seven years to pay them off?

[TBF]

23. That's an interesting question.

People sometimes take out loans later in life in an effort to retrain after being laid off. Or they might defer in an attempt to get other bills paid off (like medical expenses).

But I note that you are focusing on the individual ("what did you do wrong&quot as opposed to systemic issues. And adding "I am not judging" doesn't change my opinion of your question. FWIW.

[JeffHead]

3. I co-signed a couple for the kid. Does that count?

I'm making the payments after all. $70,000 to send him to film school and he's currently working in a liquor store. He'll probably never use the "film degree" in real life. Love the kid but it's basically money just flushed down the shitter.

[Ed Suspicious]

8. He has a degree. All is not lost. Not being sarcastic. That degree means he'll be ready to go

when an opportunity presents itself, (or when he seeks one out).

[2naSalit]

4. I'm also

a member of that cohort. No retirement for me! Oddly, that's one of the main reasons I went to college in my 30s, so I would have a decent income and retirement.

[progressoid]

5. Add me to that list.

Actually, my wife, but that's no different to the loan holders.

[lib87]

7. I Hope I Can Pay Mine Off by Then

...and since business are people too, maybe the government will treat me like a company and wipe it clean.

[arikara]

9. At 58

I just finally paid mine off this year. I had to retrain at 40ish too.

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. congrats. keep evidence that u paid them off. sneaky debt buyers go after people yrs later

On student loans paid off.

[DeSwiss]

11. K&R

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THE STORY OF CAPITALISM


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[Psephos]

17. That Noam Chomsky quote is spot-on.

I don't always agree with him, but he nailed it right there.

[DeSwiss]

21. Exactly.

He can be pedantic and academically narrow-viewed on occasion, but his take here is the essence of what education is now. It's become punitive to pursue having one. Purposefully so, I'd say. By discouraging the pursuit of college degrees, the result is that there are fewer applicants applying for the non-existent jobs that are being held by the ever-expanding list of robotic replacement(s).

- This message brought to you by: ''The Future: Everyone's talking about us.....''

Algorithms and Red Wine

"But the truth is that each gallon of fossil fuel contains the energy of 40 man-hours. And that has played hell with the ecology of human work, thanks mostly to the money economy. For instance, a simple loaf of bread, starting with the fossil fuels used to grow the wheat, transport, mill, bake, create the packaging materials and packaging, advertise and distribute it, uses the energy of two men working for two weeks. Yet this waste and vast inefficiency is invisible to us because we see it only in terms of money, jobs and commerce. Cheap oil allowed industrial humans to increasingly live on environmental credit for over a century. Now the bill is due and no amount of money can pay it. The calorie, pure heat expenditure as energy, is the only currency in which Mother Nature trades. Period.

Despite that America produced such thinkers on the subject of living simply as Thoreau, modern hydrocarbon based civilization has driven expectations of material goods and convenience, and the transactions surrounding those expectations, through the stratosphere. Money has abstracted the notion of work to the point where, I dare say, there are not 100,000 people in America who truly understand that, although there are at least a few million trying to understand and liberate themselves.

When viewed from outside the virtual money economy, and from the standpoint of the planet’s caloric economy, probably half of American and European jobs are not only unnecessary, but also terribly destructive, either directly or indirectly. Yet what nation or economic state acknowledges the need for a transition away from jobs that aren't necessary. None, because such an economy could not support the war machines or the transactional financial industries that dominate our needs hierarchy for the benefit of the few. Loaning us money we have already earned, stuffing us with corn syrup. And I won’t even go into the strong possibility that everybody does not need to be employed at all times for the world to keep on turning."

~ Joe Bageant, "Algorithms and Red Wine"

[SheilaT]

12. I have spent the last two decades or more

telling people not to take on student debt. And for parents not to borrow money to send their kids to an expensive school. There is NOTHING wrong with attending a community college.

I also tell everyone I can that it's fine to go ahead and major in something you love, but you must remember that in the end you're going to need to earn a living.

When I was about twenty-five I had a conversation with a distant cousin who bitterly regretted that she had taken on debt to complete college. I forget the amount she named, and even allowing for inflation it wasn't too terrible. But she said to me that I should never consider doing such a thing. That conversation has stayed with me some forty years.

[CoffeeCat]

13. I am ashamed that I still have student-loan debt. I just turned 50.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone. It is embarrassing to still be paying off this debt.

I first began college and decided to take some time off and figure out what I really wanted to do. I worked for four years, then returned to college and graduated with a degree in Journalism/Science Writing.

I had a very convoluted, crazy situation happen while I was a full-time college student. I kept sending the Loan Servicing Center (LSC) in Lawrence, KS--documentation that I was a full-time student. This should have allowed me to defer my loans. The LSC repeatedly claimed that the documentation had not arrived. It became almost comical. The woman who worked at the Registrar--where I had to obtain the documentation--got to know me very well because I sent this documentation at least ten times.

I made mistakes. I should have hired an attorney or stayed on top of it. I was a full-time college student. I never imagined that my loans would default. They did. Because I started college, then stopped, then returned--I had about 35k in loans. When they defaulted, I had no way to pay on them. I was paying my own way through college with three jobs, one unpaid internship. I needed every penny for tuition and living expenses.

The loans were in default for three years, then I graduated. Then, I put the loans in forbearance until I gained employment and began making payments. Interest, penalties and time swelled the loan to 95k in debt.

The Director of Financial Aid at the college used my situation as an example that she discussed at a conference. She knew that I had been treated unfairly. She told me that there was a time when these loan servicing companies (like Sallie Mae and LSC) were unfairly defaulting people that they viewed as high risk. Because I had attended college, stopped then returned--the Director felt that maybe my life path seemed erratic or unusual, and this may be why this happened. In the end, she couldn't help me.

I have been paying on these loans for years. I am proud to say that my $95,000 student-loan debt is now down to $30,000. I was paying off $1,500 per month--putting all of our extra money toward this loan--sacrificing so much. Then, my husband experienced two layoffs in 2008 and 2009, due to the recession. He works in IT and that sector was hit hard.

My loans have been in forbearance (not paying on them) for the past couple of years. We felt it was so important to shore up our savings--which was depleted during the unemployment stretches. We took a 30 percent pay cut, due to those unemployment situations. IT salaries have spiraled downward.

I hope to resume payments on these loans sometime before October. The payment will be $2,400 per month for 13 months.

I hope to have these loans paid off before I am 52, so we can save money for our two daughters' college fund--so they do not have to borrow money and be riddled with debt.

In short--my $35,000 in loans turned into a crippling $95,000 debt that has affected my entire life and the life of my family.

I tell my story so that others will realize that these loan companies can do anything to you. If you can't pay it off, the interest still accrues and the loan grows, and if you default (and it may be due to a paperwork glitch or even something more unfair) the interest and penalties grow into a Mt Everest of debt.

Don't take out loans unless you absolutely have to. Work your way through school. Who cares if it takes you six or seven years to earn that degree. A lifetime of debt--into your 50's--is just not worth it.

[Psephos]

18. You should not be ashamed. Quite the opposite.

Those who should feel shame are the ones responsible for, and benefiting from, the out-of-control and immoral costs of attending college, and this utterly f-ed up way of "paying" for it. Our universities have become abominations of mindless spending, administrative bloat, and salaries/benefits permanently unavailable to most of the people who actually pay for it.

You are a resilient person indeed. White light to you.

[DeSwiss]

22. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

You're a victim. The society should educate its people freely. Its in its own interest and what the people want. Bankers want to enslave us all in their debt.

And the people we have elected to office agree with our enslavers.

- It's that simple.

Resource Based Economy is a term originated by Jacque Fresco. It is a holistic socio-economic system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.

[IrishAyes]

14. As an early boomer, I think mine was probably the last generation

where average middle class parents could afford to send one or more kids to college so there'd be no debt hanging over anyone at graduation. Of course we took side jobs when we could and did everything possible to help ourselves, but it was strictly pay as you go. You'd have to be really well off to even dream of that today. And that's so sad. My ex and I were able to buy our first home at age 23 all on our own. Back then that was normal. I haven't even paid a mortgage for close to 30 years because we lived on his income and saved my salary the first few years. By the time we divorced I might've been house-poor but I did have a house at least, and I tried to time the market when I wanted to move.

That's not remotely possible anymore.

[CoffeeCat]

16. We have family friends and their combined income is close to $180,000…

…and they are taking out student loans for their son who will enter college this Fall.

He is attending a state University about two hours from their home. It's not like he's going to an expensive Ivy League College or University.

I walked through the numbers with my friend--because I stressed to her how important it is to avoid student loans, if they can.

Tuition is $10k a year. Plus dorm, board plan, living expenses, books, etc. They estimated that each year would cost 18,000.

So, it now costs a family $72,000 to send a child to college for four years.

That is so outrageous. This is why most get student loans.

Our friends, who make $180k, don't have the $72,000 to pay for all of their kids' college education. They've got three kids who will all be in college at the same time. They will be paying for a good chunk of their college, but they can't pay for all of it, so these kids will have some student loans.

It's quite the dilemma for middle and upper-middle class families.

[angrychair]

15. they do not take all your money

And in some cases none of it. The absolute most they would take is 15% and their is a set amount excluded before that "up to 15%" is applied. Here is an article that talks about some of it: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/retirement/social-security-garnished-1.aspx

[PatrickforO]

19. If we want to be a strong country with a strong middle class, then we'd

better start investing our tax money in degrees instead of death drones and surveillance.

[quadrature]

20. stop originating the loans

you have to start somewhere

everybody wins

[DonViejo]

24. Locking...

This is not LBN, but rather, a feature article.