Government loans for Students Raises All Costs

The progressive agenda is to bring as many as possible under the wing of government and what a good way to do that is to drive them into unsustainable debt. The more the government guarantees loans to students the more the colleges and university will raise the cost.

And guess who is a big contributor to the progressive liberal Democrat campaigns - who knew - college and university personal as well as the endowments.

Student Debt Hits the Middle-Aged
Source: Josh Mitchell, "Student Debt Hits the Middle-Aged," Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2012.

Student debt is rising sharply among all age groups, but middle-aged Americans appear to be struggling the most with payments, according to new data released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The delinquency rate -or the percentage of debt on which no payment has been made for 90 days - was 11.9 percent for debt held by borrowers aged 40 to 49 as of March. That compares with a rate of 8.7% for borrowers of all ages.

Two-thirds of the nation's $900 billion in student debt is held by Americans under 40, the Fed estimates. But borrowers over 40 are having a particularly tough time with student debt for several reasons, consumer and higher-education experts say:

•Many debtors over 40 are still paying balances from college years ago, while their home values and savings have declined sharply in recent years. Some have stopped payments after losing jobs.
•Many parents-no longer able to tap home equity to pay for their children's education-are taking out new student loans to do so.
•An Education Department program that provides loans to parents to fund their kids' education is among the fastest-growing of the government's education loan programs.

Since 2005, the number of Americans in their 50s with student loans has doubled to 4.6 million, and borrowers in their 60s and older more than tripled to 2.2 million.

Student debt has been rising as enrollments and tuition climb. The Fed data show the number of Americans with student debt rose to 37 million this year from 23 million in 2005.