Posted on 06/30/2015 8:40:54 AM PDT by Hojczyk
A fast-growing number of seniors are hitting retirement with a student debt burden. Even their Social Security is at risk
Most debt you can get out of—painful as it might be. Credit card debt can be cleared in bankruptcy. A mortgage can end in foreclosure. But student debt is more sticky, and it turns out it can have big consequences in retirement.
Last year, Richard Minuti’s Social Security payments were cut by 10%.
The Philadelphia native was already earning only a bit over $10,000 a year, including some part-time work as a tutor. “I was desperate,” says Minuti. “Taking 10% of a person’s pay who’s trying to live with bills, that’s the cruelty of it.”
The Treasury Department was taking the money to pay for federal student loans he had taken out years before. Just before age 50, Minuti had gone back to college to get a second bachelor’s degree and a better job in social work and counseling. But the non-profit jobs he landed afterwards were lower paying, and he defaulted on the debt.
Student debt’s painful new twist
The number of seniors whose Social Security checks were garnished rose by roughly six times over the past decade, from about 6,000 to 36,000 people, says the GAO. Legislation from the mid-1990s ensured recipients could still get a minimum of $750 a month. At the time, this was enough to keep them from sliding below the poverty threshold. But to meet the current threshold, Congress would need to increase this to above $1,000 a month.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
I am using my Post 9/11 bill to get my degree now! So, I will NOT have any student loan payments!
It’s a money laundering scheme:
1. Government gives poor student money for college.
2. College takes money and gives it to liberal candidates and causes under the guise of ‘speaking fees’.
3. Candidates get elected and increase the number of students taking out student loans.
4. Repeat........................
Pay them off while working like I did.
What fool over 50 would go back to university, looking to get a degree and change careers? At age 50, you are considered “overqualified” (dog whistle for “too old”)
Nobody wants to hire anyone over the age of 50...unless you want to be a greeter at Walmart.
“Taking 10% of a person’s pay...”
Social Security is NOT pay.
Only if there ARE tax refunds. I don't know about you, but I adjust my withholding so that I end the year owing a few bucks (but not enough to trigger penalties/interest).
Unless parents fell into the trap of taking out loans for their kids...
At the very least, loan rates ought to be tied to the course of study and probability of timely payback.
Major in nursing or mechanical engineering, it would be 2%. Major in XYZ Grievance Studies, it would be 22%.
If credit card companies can charge up the wazoo for poor risks, student loans should be able to do the same.
Out of curiosity I googled the salary for a nurse practitioner. According to salary.com it’s about 84k.
So maybe it will work out okay. It’s not necessarily safer unless he works for a bomb squad or as a Baltimore policeman. Many nurses get assaulted by out of control patients.
Ah! I hadn’t thought of that.
Doubling down on stupid!
Two potential causes - they went back to school, or they co-signed a loan for someone.
Example, we continually hear that banks made housing loans to people it shouldn't have. There is some truth to this over simplified statement but let's use it as a comparison to student loans.
The government will lend the average student going to an average state school $40K over four years. If that average student decides to major in psychology, sociology, journalism, art history, we know that the prospect of a job, let alone a job that can cash flow $40K in debt, is extremely limited (especially for average students). Yet these are the most sought out majors because of grad inflation and college's desire to keep students in school to bolster annual budgets.
So what is the difference between the mortgage banker and the federal student lender? One difference is if the mortgage banker makes too many bad loans it goes broke. However, this is not an issue for the federal government which its student debt is not part of bankruptcy. We also know that individual retirement is protected in Bankruptcy, except now we know the feds can take your social security.
I didn’t think of the children part of it.
Why do these libtards think there is such virtue in "working for a non-profit"
Even my daughter came home from college thinking she would go 'work for a non-profit' after school, and I asked her "doing what? who pays you? where do THEY get money from to pay you? if it is government grants then where does THE GOVT get money to give to them"
Eventually she realized some people must be making money in order to pay her virtuous 'non-profit' salary.
And when she learned aerospace engineers have a starting salary of $65K she was elated- until I told her that no 'non-profit' was going to pay her that, and don't plan on spending all $65K beause HALF will be going to taxes in one form or aother...
When she asked "WHY?" I said "So they can give some of your money to 'non-profits'".
Applied for loans after the age of 50, of course government MORE THAN WILLING to oblige when retirement is right around the corner!!!! Stupid is as stupid does!!!!! He deserves to have it come from SS, IDIOT!!!!
“I’m sorry, but this is a debt they were made aware could not be cleared because of bankruptcy. They should have made better choices.”
Everyone knows that the big money is in social work. Now, that’s a laudable persuasion. But you’d better either have a lot of money that you or your parents/spouse made in other ways or plan on eating Ramen noodles. Sorry, but my give-a-crap meter is registering 0.0.
That is awful. My brother in law has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Amsterdam. He runs assisted living facilities.
However, I learned accounting because I had to, not because I thought I liked it, and now I’ve got tax analysis on my resume. Turns out to be a great field!
One of my employer’s consultants said his father told him to become either a mortician or a tax man.
Bookmark
“Our son USMC Infantry three tours + in the sand box plus working his student years, the others has paid everything off after two years in the work force.
They declined our assistance”
As a taxpayer (who worked full time AND went to college full time simultaneously, don’t even ask), I’m very upset about this talk of debt forgiveness, but people like your son must be going nuts over it. Other than having to drive on the Dan Ryan in 1970’s Chicago, I didn’t risk my life for my education.
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