Any Older Student Loan Borrowers?

Cancel Student Debt and win #CollegeForAll
#79

ryanmoran011
Hey there, my name is Ryan. I’m a student debtor and a nurse with > $100,000 in federal & private student loans. I greatly appreciate you sharing this - even though I just graduated college a few years ago, I’m very interested in hearing from the growing number of older student debtors as this is the largest-growing cohort of debtors. If you’re interested in sharing more of your story, I’m compiling some testimony from older student debtors for an article I’m writing for my Medium.com page https://medium.com/@nurseryanrn. Feel free to email me at ryanmoran011@gmail.com if you’d like to share your story, how student debt has affected your life, what you’d like to see going forward in terms of action from the federal government, etc. Everything’s anonymous unless you specify otherwise.

This goes for anyone reading this post who’d like to share their story as well!

Wishing you all the best,

Ryan

#80

Hey there, my name is Ryan. I’m a student debtor and a nurse with > $100,000 in federal & private student loans. I greatly appreciate you sharing this - even though I just graduated college a few years ago, I’m very interested in hearing from the growing number of older student debtors as this is the largest-growing cohort of debtors. If you’re interested in sharing more of your story, I’m compiling some testimony from older student debtors for an article I’m writing for my Medium.com page https://medium.com/@nurseryanrn. Feel free to email me at ryanmoran011@gmail.com if you’d like to share your story, how student debt has affected your life, what you’d like to see going forward in terms of action from the federal government, etc. Everything’s anonymous unless you specify otherwise.

This goes for anyone reading this post who’d like to share their story as well!

Wishing you all the best,

Ryan

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#81

50, and I owe 60K in Federal student loans. I went to school late at University of Phoenix. I got my degree in 2012. I didn’t have a choice; I had to work to live, and at that time, degree programs for working adults were limited. Tutions were increasing faster than I could save. So I took on student loans. I dream of a better life and access to jobs I didn’t have access to. Now the jobs that are there don’t want to hire someone with a degree because if I get an offer to one of these mythical green jobs, I went to school for , I’ll leave. Which is pretty much true.

I was told all kinds of things that my earnings with this degree would be a salary I would still be happy to take. So I applied for the borrower’s defense this last summer. Still no word. My guess is they want to stall till they can kill that.

Going to college was the single worst financial mistake I’ve made.

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#82
  1. “permanently disabled” (…) borrowers of ANY age are eligible for FULL CANCELLATION of federal loans!!! It’s clear that not enough people are aware of that!!!
  2. seeing this thread as a “level 1 cripple” (from infections milder than Rona) makes me wonder what we could do uniting ELDERS with ILLDERS/younger disabled folks … even if you think saddling young abled folx w debt is moral, that argument crumbles looking at our lives!!! Hugs/solidarity!
#83

Hi, I’m Dave from Dallas. I’m 64 and semi-retired. My student loan debt is for my youngest son, I hold the ParentsPlus loan to the tune of about $70K. Due to the pandemic, I got laid off in January, 2021 and can no longer make my payments. I tried to get an into an Income-Driven Repayment program, until I realized that everybody gets denied and it’s useless to pursue. The whole process is pathetic and politically-motivated. So here I am…

I dream of the day when the payments are re-instated and nobody in the US elects to make a payment of any kind. Wonder how they’d react to that…

Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?

#84

I would be very happy to share my story with the media. $64,000+ debt, just was released from medical BK this past July(took five years to pay off). I am 69, my husband is 84 (multiple mecial issues plus the early stages of dementia). I worked as a nurse for 40+ years. Living in a mobile home with quite a bit of anxiety at present. Unfortunately we elders are at the mercy of a system designed to trap learners in an endless cycle of debt with no straightforward way out.

#85

Hi @Braxton, I’m 51 years old and I have $55, 000+ in student loans as well. Where do we stand now? Are there any considerations for people like us, yet, or are we still on the back burner? What else can we do to be heard?

#86

Hi @scrivenl77 and all others who have posted in this thread!

I wanted to thank you for sharing your stories here and urge you to join our 50 Over 50 Debt Strike! A group of now hundreds of Debt Strikers who are over the age of 50 w/ student debt. We had our last call last week and should have another call come the new year. If you want to try to get your story heard as a Student Debtor over 50, consider joining our Writing Workshop Monday December 12th.

You can find any of our events here!

#87

Hi Jerry, I am a 57 year-old woman and I understand the feeling of guilt you are going through because of decisions made under a desire to conquer the world, especially coming from a disadvantage, family, culture… I pushed my two sons to attend college and now one of them has a debt of almost $200.00. We must keep fighting this corrupt system.

#88

I am an older borrower and I would like to expose the federal TANF or welfare agency as a predatory agency for lenders both private and government lenders. I would like to know how many people needed welfare help due to a crisis but were told they had to go to work or go to school. If I had the career skills and family support when my husband left us I would have gone to work but I had just given birth to our second child when he discovered fatherhood was not for him.
When I told the welfare worker I didn’t want to go into debt, his response was that after I got our of school I would have a job and make enough money to pay for the loans. He neglected to tell my young mother self that I would have enough money to pay for the loans but nothing else. Going to school did not improve my children’s lives but made us poorer than before.

Somehow we need to expose this predatory agent aka the welfare department. How much money has the welfare department made for the banks, financial institutions and educational institutions??

Thanks for listening.

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#89

Hey @lil.brown.owl have you had your student loans for over 40 years? If so, we have a reporter who wants to get in touch with you.

#90

Hey @nvstgatr1 have you had your student loans for over 40 years? If so we have a reporter who would like to talk with you.

#91

Hi @ssuz545 we have a reporter who is looking to talk to people who have had student loans for over 40 years. It sounds like you might have yours for 38 years, which is maybe close enough if you are willing to share your story.

#92

Hi @maestraloca have you had your student loans for over 40 years? If so we have a reporter who would like to talk with you if you are willing to share your story.

#93

Hey @laurel_sharp have you had student loans for over 40 years? If so we have a reporter who is willing to talk to you.

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#94

Yes, I have no problem sharing my story.

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#95

I am 69 but I haven’t had loans for over 40 years.

Cheryl Guerbaoui

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#96

I am now 64. I had federal debt totalling over $50k and private of about $9 k. I was able to get the federal loans discharged as I am on SSDI. I was trying to get a degree so I could get of the SSDI, but had to drop out after I got hurt, which further disabled me. The private loans were charged off as I refused to pay them and private creditors cannot garnish SSDI. Thanks for helping debtors!

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#97

56 years old, 98k in the hole, don’t even have a degree because they said I borrowed my maximum. I don’t know how that’s possible, but I never finished school because they wouldn’t loan me any more money to finish. Now I’m stuck with a useless debt. It earned me nothing.

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#98

I am 66. My husband is 73. I have my own loans and Parent Plus loans. My husband has Parent Plus loans. My 2 kids and I went to state college beginning in 2006. Our tuition doubled from the time we began to the time we graduated 4-5 years later. We borrowed $100K, paid $40K, and now owe $225K. The loan servicer gave us misinformation over the years and encouraged us to forbear. I tried many times to find out what my payment would be married filing separately vs married filing jointly with both my husband and I having loans. They told me one thing, then after I filed the paperwork, my payment turned out to be a completely different amount. I just gave up and went into forbearance at times. I think I am still not getting correct information and I am afraid to do anything. They are saying my payments will be 1/12th of the amount I find when using the loan payment calculator. My husband says to just do what they say and see what happens.

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