The burden of student loans has become a constant anxiety for students that often has the potential to financially haunt them for the rest of their lives.
For those who utilize these loans, most of us imagine we will be paying them off well into the future. But for students who attend school in their later years, the payment period is significantly shorter and potentially more ?damaging.
The Guardian published an article claiming 3 percent of those 65 and older carry the same debt traditional students do and with less time to pay it off, meaning it frequently defaults and is taken out of their already meager Social Security.
Some might claim it is irresponsible of the elderly to attend school at that cost, but the same could be said for students taking out loans at 18.
The real problem is that higher education shouldn’t be just for the wealthy or for the young.
For many elderly people, retirement is the only time in their lives they have the free time to start crossing off things on their bucket list, especially for those who were unable to afford or attend college in their prime.
Retirement is often the first chance to travel and experience new things. For many who were denied the experience earlier in life, this also includes college.
But it’s more than retirees trying to broaden their horizons.
Twenty-seven percent of retirees younger than 65 are shouldering student loans for their children’s education.
Many parents and grandparents are now made to enter into crippling debt upon retirement just to provide for their children.
And it is worse for them because once you hit 65, the U.S. Treasury starts taking money out of Social Security to pay those loans.
For many, Social Security is the only check they have coming in, and siphoning away their already meager checks has left many seniors in ?poverty.
It is ridiculous that we have made the pursuit of knowledge so necessary and appealing for a higher station in life but have also made it so infeasible for so many.
The American dream allows for people to build themselves up to be better than they were, but this requires access to education, which it seems that no one but the luckiest have access to anymore.
Teens can’t pay for it and neither can people who have earned money their whole lives.
People of all ages are compromising a comfortable future for what should be available to ?anyone who wants it.
If this trend continues, no generation will be free from the debt that comes with education.
We don’t want to subject our grandparents or our children to the same anxieties that we as college students will continue to live with long after graduation. We don’t even want it ourselves.
It’s time the education system realizes the harm it is inflicting on those it is supposed to be serving. It’s time to reel in student debt for all ages.
jordrile@indiana.edu
