Older Consumers and Student Loan Debt

Earlier this week, I caught a segment on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt about the CFPB issuing a report on older consumers and student loans.  At first, I wasn’t sure why individuals aged 65+ would be pursuing higher education.  As it turns out, these consumers are taking out student loans to help their children and grand-children with the rising expenses of college and university studies.

After diving into the report issued by the CFPB, I found some of the following statistics interesting.   In the past decade, student loan debt for consumers aged over 60 has quadrupled. 70% of these borrower’s student loans are for their children’s education and 37% of borrowers over 65 are in default.

This will be interesting to monitor in the coming months, especially since we have a new administration.  Can we expect to see new rules for higher education financing?  Will there be different repayment options for consumers on retirement benefits?  Regardless, if you’re a student that was fortunate to have your family pay for your education, make sure you reach out to them and offer to help to pay down some of “your” student loans.