Seniors owe billions in student loans

By TODAY.com staff

When you think of student loans, you think of students and recent graduates -- younger people in their 20s and 30s working to pay off the thousands of dollars in debt from undergraduate and graduate schools.

It's a good bet you don't think of people in their 60s, 70s and even 80s struggling to [pay off student debt. But new research shows that Americans 60 and older owe $36 billion in educational debt and account for 5 percent of delinquent student loans.

In some cases, the debt was incurred when adults went back to school later in life. In other cases the debt resulted from co-signed loans taken out by children.

Washington Post reporter Ylan Q. Mui, wrote about the research in The Washington Post and appeared on CNBC to discuss the trend:

According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, of the $85 billion in past due student loans, nearly 20 percent was owed by people 50 and older. With Ylan Mui of The Washington Post.

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