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Too often we think of student debt as a young person’s problem. But the reality is that millions of older Americans are working well into our golden years to service unpayable student loans.
Students can now find out if their majors are worth the debt
Students can now look to see if their majors are worth the debt.
I have worked two jobs my entire life. As a teenager growing up in Alabama, I worked nights at a burger joint and weekends at the record shop. As an adult, I worked as an administrative assistant and a florist in order to support myself and my kids after my husband’s premature death. And, now, at age 60, I still work two jobs – as a health administrator and a host at a local diner – in order to pay my student debt.
I took on student loans to get a job that could provide for my family and myself in my older years, but the reverse has happened. I’ve taken money out of my retirement account to lower my student debt payments, which exceed my mortgage payments.
I am far from alone. The number of adults age 60 or older with student loan debt has grown sixfold over the past two decades, and the amount of debt they carry has multiplied nearly 20 times, according to the National Consumer Law Center and the New America Foundation. Today, 9 million debtors 50 and older hold more than $400 billion in student loans, according to the Education Data Initiative.
Unless President Joe Biden takes swift action to discharge student debt in the coming weeks, many of us will never be able to retire.
Although each of us has a unique story of how debt buried us alive, most older debtors have one thing in common: We went to school to make our lives better and more stable. But now, decades later, an insurmountable wall of student debt blocks this humble goal.
When I became a widow in my 30s, I knew I would need a better paying job to provide for my family. I also wanted to set a good example for my two small children. Course by course, I worked my way through an associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degree. To my pride, my children both decided to continue to postsecondary education. But lacking savings or generational wealth, I took out Parent PLUS loans, as millions of people do every year, to support their dreams.
Older student loan borrowers deserve to retire in dignity
After 20-plus years of loans, consolidations and regular payments for all three of us, my balance has ballooned to unpayable proportions, from an initial loan of$80,000 to more than $200,000 today, thanks to 20 years of interest that compounds at a skyrocketing rate. Right now, I accrue $1,100 of interest each month.
Absent executive action, I do not see any resolution to this situation in my lifetime. That’s why I am part of a growing movement of older student loan borrowers asking the Biden-Harris administration to discharge these loans so we can live out our older years in dignity.
Too often, we think of student debt as a young person’s problem. But the reality is that millions of older Americans are working well into our golden years to service unpayable student debts. Retirement is as relevant to our lives as outer space.
Many of us have loans that are so old, they are ineligible for the current alphabet soup of relief programs – PSLF, IDR and SAVE. Although we have been paying for 20, 30 or 40 years, our balances have gone up, not down.
Meanwhile, our incomes are limited and getting lower. Stretching Social Security payments across gas bills, rent, groceries and health care is tough enough; now we have to add hundreds of dollars in student loan payments to the balance. When we can’t make a payment, our loans risk falling into default, the consequences of which are dire: Tax refunds, wages, disability income and even Social Security can get garnished.
But here’s the cruelest part: All of these debts will be canceled when we die, in a process known as a “death discharge” in which the federal government writes off billions of dollars of student debt held by deceased borrowers.
Between the next payment and our last breath, the federal government will charge interest, garnish wages and offset our Social Security in the name of student loans. Because of these loans, we will be denied mortgages. We will take on second jobs. Our mental and physical health will suffer under the crushing weight of unpayable sums.
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When we die, however, the balance will finally be zero.
Americans’ debt will be discharged eventually. They just have to die first.
For this reason, relieving older Americans of their debts is a sensible policy that deserves support – even from debt relief skeptics. Let’s face it: These old debts are unlikely to be repaid and will get canceled one way or another. Relieving elders of these burdens prior to death makes much more sense than discharging them at our funerals.
Not only would it unburden us to enjoy our twilight years, but it would also be good for our families and neighbors. Although you wouldn’t know it from our loan statements, we aging student debtors are doing essential work. We are the teachers, social workers, therapists, nurses’ aides and public sector lawyers. We are raising our children and our grandchildren, and caring for our own elders. Relieving us of our student debt is not a drain on public resources, as some critics contend. It supports working families and communities.
Canceling these debts is good policy, and it is absolutely possible. The Department of Education has the power – Biden simply needs to say the word.
Discharging debts based on a debtor’s age falls squarely within congressionally-approved regulations. Although right-wing plaintiffs are working multiple angles in the courts to stop Biden’s broad-based cancellation plans, this is a different legal mechanism for delivering relief. In 1966, Congress authorized the Departments of Justice and Treasury to discharge federal debts based on a “debtor’s age.”
The Department of Education discharges loans based on the debtor’s age on a case-by-case basis. It’s time to use this authority at a meaningful scale.
Leading Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump,want to block student loan cancellation across the board. Indeed, some have proposed that they will try to reinstate any debts wiped away by the Biden administration (something experts say will be difficult if not impossible to do).
Regardless, in these final weeks before he retires from the White House, I’m praying that President Biden stands up for people like me. I fear this is my final chance of seeing relief in my lifetime. And one day, I’d like to retire, too. Or at least work only one job.
Renita Walker is a Georgia resident and member of the Debt Collective.
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