Graduating with student loan debt is an all too common reality for new college degree holders beginning their careers. But there’s another, often overlooked cohort of debtors facing their own set of challenges: Americans over the age of 55 approaching their retirement years.
About 2.2 million people over the age of 55 have outstanding student loans, according to data from the Federal Reserve Board’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finance. These older workers and unemployed people say the loans they took out years earlier could hinder their ability to retire comfortably, according to a new report from The New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
“This is not a problem that’s going away… it’s only going to get worse,” the report’s author, Karthik Manickam, said in a press conference Wednesday to discuss the findings.
I don’t even have student loan debt and I struggle to save for anything.
Same. Everything goes to essentials like rent, food, and utilities. I’ve given up on ever being able to buy a home for my family.
The economy is so bad that student loans are just another drop in a very big, very full bucket.