How Long Have They Been Failing to Pay Off These Loans?

6/15/25 Motley Fool:

"For instance, by "sometime this summer," a 15% monthly garnishment is expected to be reinstated for the roughly 452,000 delinquent federal student loan borrowers who are currently receiving a Social Security benefit. Federal student loan payments ceased in March 2020 during the height of the pandemic and haven't recommenced."

Not every Social Security recipient is 65 or older.   Some are dependents of recipients of persons receiving disability payments.  (If I recall correctly,  up to 22 for dependents in college.)  Some of these recipients might be much younger than 65 if they are disabled and receiving Social Security payments for that reason.   

It is troubling to think that there are Boomers who did not pay off their student loans by now.  I borrowed $1000 when I went off to USC. I forgot about it completely after I dropped out.  The reminder arrived Some months later, so I paid it off immediately.  (I was not working as a barista.)

What have Boomers been doing if not paying down their loans?

UPDATE: See comment by Mr. Rostrom about collection agencies pursuing paid-off student loans.

This is Sad, At So Many Levels

4/21/25 AP:

"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department will begin collection next month on student loans that are in default, including the garnishing of wages for potentially millions of borrowers, officials said Monday.

"Currently, roughly 5.3 million borrowers are in default on their federal student loans."

1. Biden should not have tried to buy off young people with forgiving student loans.

2. Young people should not have been sold a bill of goods that a degree, any degree would make enough economic difference,  to justify getting tend of thousands of dollars in debt.  There were degrees that would lead to good jobs.  Many would not.

3. The article says that less than 40% are current on their debt.  I suspect many stopped making payments during COVID when the government stopped requiring payments.  I suspect more than a few saw Biden's pandering as an excuse to not even try.

4. Sending these debts to collections is going to impair  credit scores for many years.

5. The entire student loan process has been a huge subsidy to universities.   Some, such as the Ivy League schools with huge endowments,  did not need it.  Even at the more typical schools, the effect was to drive up tuition. 

Why Are Students in Debt?

University of Pennsylvania president annual compensation above $22 million.  That is $60,000 per day.  If any corporate CEO was paid that well, the left would be screeching.

Gee, I Wonder Why This Guy Thinks the USA is in Decline?

And why he cannot pay back his student loans?

6/30/23 Newsweek:

"Some student loan borrowers encouraged others to default on their loans "en masse" following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to cancel President Joe Biden's student loan debt forgiveness plan, but one expert told Newsweek why that may not be a good idea.

"Okay, thing I can actually talk about: Mass default on student loan debt would be a really effective message and f*** you to this country from the folks most impacted by our constant slide backwards. Just don't pay it. Hit the bricks. En masse," Twitter user Derek Van Dyke wrote."

What he does not know, apparently, is that Sen. Joe Biden (D-MBNA) is why you cannot go bankrupt to discharge student loan debt.  I suppose if Derek wants to go homeless his strategy might work.

Do you suppose the constant slide backwards might have something to do with a generation of kids getting degrees that lead to no job higher than barista and encouraging widespread default on debts?

I took out a student loan in 1974 when I started at USC.  (It was $1000, about all that you could take out at the time.). After I dropped out, I completely forgot about the debt.  (No, really, I was more focused on a lunatic cross dresser threatening my life because I was sleeping with his roommate/girlfriend/extortion partner.)

When I received the reminder a year or two later, I just paid it off.  I was able to get a job after dropping out of college.

That this guy thinks he can just stop making payments without destroying whatever credit score he already has (can they create a new sub-200 FICO score for flakes like this?). Does he honestly not know that even a barista can get his wages attached?

Someone is Upset About Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Proposal

5/27/22 Yahoo News:

"Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, criticized Biden's plan — a $10,000 write-off for those making less than $150,000 per year, according to The Washington Post — on Twitter.  Johnson suggested that the plan does not address a meaningful amount of debt, especially for Black borrowers, who are typically burdened by more of it."

What makes so strange is blacks who go to college likely do have more student debt, but most blacks do not graduate from college.  About 42% do. This means most blacks will be subsidizing the minority of blacks who do.

This is in some sense even more unfair than the subsidy of recent law school and medical school graduates by people who either did not go to college or whose parents paid some or all of the costs.