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Jan 17, 2024 | 
newamerica.org | Tia Caldwell |Sarah Sattelmeyer
Almost 7 million people, about one in six federal student loan borrowers, are in default on their loans. By all accounts, defaulting on a student loan is an upsetting and financially calamitous experience. Borrowers default when they miss 270 days’ worth of payments. Soon after, they can have their tax refunds and paychecks garnished, their credit scores fall, and their eligibility for more student aid revoked.
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Dec 14, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Tia Caldwell |Sarah Sattelmeyer
Retirement-age borrowers are one of the fastest growing segments of the population with student loans, increasing 500 percent over the last 20 years. Despite this population’s significant growth, a lack of government data has made it hard to piece together a clear understanding of the challenges faced by these borrowers. For years, a 2016 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) supplied some of the only administrative data on older borrowers’ default rates.
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Dec 11, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Tia Caldwell |Sarah Sattelmeyer
Unaffordable student loans are often seen as a problem afflicting young people, but in 2022, 3.5 million Americans over the age of 60 held $1.25 billion in student loan debt. The number of Americans approaching retirement age with student loan debt skyrocketed over 500 percent in roughly the last two decades. New America has been investigating the reasons behind the growth and exploring what the change means for seniors and their families.
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Nov 3, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Tia Caldwell |Sarah Sattelmeyer
This blog is the final piece in a series focused on older Americans with student debt. The first post finds that many older borrowers are repaying debt from their own education. The second post uses survey data to explore the demographics and financial well-being of seniors repaying their college loans. And the third post tells the stories of some of these borrowers. Former college students report taking out loans to invest in their future financial security.
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Da'Shon Carr |Sarah Sattelmeyer |Tia Caldwell |Edward Conroy
New America sat down with the Institute of Women's Policy Research's (IWPR) Nina Besser Doorley, Vice President of Policy and Strategic Initiatives and Afet Dundar, Senior Research Director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), for a conversation on how they are using policy research to close gaps and advance equity for the one in five college students that are student parents.
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Sep 10, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Sarah Sattelmeyer
A COVID-19 pandemic-related pause on payments, interest, and collections has been in place for most federal student loan borrowers since March 2020. That pause ended on September 1, when interest accrual resumed on borrowers’ loans. Tens of millions of borrowers will soon be receiving (or may have already received) a bill, due in October, for the first time in more than three years. Those who graduated or left school during the pandemic may be getting a bill for the first time ever.
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Sep 5, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Sarah Sattelmeyer
September is student parent month—an opportunity to celebrate the one in five students in the higher education system, including both undergraduate and graduate students, with dependent children. A majority of student parents identify as students of color, particularly Black and Latina students; are women; and are over the age of 24. Four in ten undergraduates with children attend community colleges, and more than half work full time while enrolled in school.
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Aug 1, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Sarah Sattelmeyer |Tia Caldwell
This blog is the third in a four-part series focused on older Americans with student debt. The first post finds that many older borrowers are repaying debt from their own education. The second post uses survey data to explore the demographics and financial well-being of seniors repaying their college loans. Our final post will suggest policies to provide relief to older borrowers. Maya was born in the late 1960s to a Midwestern family that sometimes struggled to make ends meet.
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Jun 22, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Tia Caldwell |Sarah Sattelmeyer
This blog is the second in a four-part series focused on older Americans with student debt. The first post can be found here. The number of Americans nearing retirement age with student loan debt skyrocketed 500 percent in the last two decades. While some of these borrowers hold loans taken out to help a relative attend college, our first blog in this series highlights that many, if not most, still owe debt from their own college experience.
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Jun 1, 2023 | 
newamerica.org | Tia Caldwell |Sarah Sattelmeyer
This blog is the first in a series focused on older Americans with student debt. Our second post investigates the demographics and financial well-being of older borrowers, and our third post tells the stories of some of these borrowers. The student debt crisis has dominated headlines recently and for good reason. Credit bureau data shows that the number of student loan borrowers has almost doubled since 2004, and the outstanding value of the debt has quadrupled.
