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Despite shopping habits, value of American-made gifts has public backing; Mark Zuckerberg dines with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago; Alabama leaders unite to address gun violence, reimagine community safety; World AIDS Day: Looking back at public-health and moral crisis; CT, US take steps to mitigate methane emissions.

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The Democratic Party is regrouping, but critiques continue. The incoming Trump administration looks at barring mainstream media from White House briefings, and AIDS advocates say the pick of Robert F. Kennedy Junior for DHHS is worrying.

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Residents in Colorado's rural communities face challenges to recycling, climate change and Oregon's megadrought are worrying firefighters, and a farm advocacy group says corporate greed is behind high food prices in Montana.

Older borrowers struggle to repay federal student loans

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Friday, December 22, 2023   

New federal data from the Department of Education confirm retirement-age borrowers are struggling to repay their federal student loans.

About 60% of borrowers over age 62 have been making federal student-loan payments for more than 15 years.

Tia Caldwell is a policy analyst with the Education, Opportunity and Mobility Initiative at the nonprofit New America - who said she suspects many other borrowers have been paying even longer.

She said until now, her team had been using 2016 data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

But the updated numbers offer valuable insight into the realities many older borrowers are grappling with, in Nevada and across the country.

"There is this huge growth of older borrowers," said Caldwell, "because so many people are struggling with their student loans, and are unable to repay their loans in the time frame that they probably imagined they would be able to when they took out those loans."

Caldwell added that financially-strapped borrowers often pause their loan payments or enroll in affordable, income-driven repayment plans - but these can extend the repayment terms by years.

Or, they spend time in default, which can have punitive consequences.

Sarah Sattelmeyer - a project director, also with New America - said the new data paint a bleak picture.

One in three federal borrowers is in default, and about 80% of seniors with loans hold debt from their own education.

She noted that it's important to have the information.

"Until now, we really have been taking what I like to call a 'beg, borrow and steal' - although maybe not the 'stealing' part - approach to getting data," said Sattelmeyer. "It is really hard to come up with the right policy solutions when you don't understand which groups are most impacted."

Sattelmeyer said the latest figures make this issue harder to ignore. She added that New America commends the Biden administration's work on student-debt relief, but more work is needed.




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