Older people in crosshairs as government restarts Social Security
garnishment on student loans
[May 15, 2025]
By MATT SEDENSKY
NEW YORK (AP) — Christine Farro has cut back on the presents she sends
her grandchildren on their birthdays, and she’s put off taking two cats
and a dog for their shots. All her clothes come from thrift stores and
most of her vegetables come from her garden. At 73, she has cut her
costs as much as she can to live on a tight budget.
But it’s about to get far tighter.
As the Trump administration resumes collections on defaulted student
loans, a surprising population has been caught in the crosshairs:
Hundreds of thousands of older Americans whose decades-old debts now put
them at risk of having their Social Security checks garnished.
“I worked ridiculous hours. I worked weekends and nights. But I could
never pay it off,” says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa
Ynez, California.
Like millions of debtors with federal student loans, Farro had her
payments and interest paused by the government five years ago when the
pandemic thrust many into financial hardship. That grace period ended in
2023 and, earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would
restart “involuntary collections” by garnishing paychecks, tax refunds
and Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Farro previously
had her Social Security garnished and expects it to restart.
Farro’s loans date back 40 years. She was a single mother when she got a
bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology and when she discovered
she couldn’t earn enough to pay off her loans, she went back to school
and got a master’s degree. Her salary never caught up. Things only got
worse.
Around 2008, when she consolidated her loans, she was paying $1,000 a
month, but years of missed payments and piled-on interest meant she was
barely putting a dent in a bill that had ballooned to $250,000. When she
sought help to resolve her debt, she says the loan company had just one
suggestion.
“They said, ‘Move to a cheaper state,’” says Farro, who rents a
400-square-foot casita from a friend. “I realized I was living in a
different reality than they were.”
Student loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in
part due to rising tuitions that have forced more people to borrow
greater sums. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in
student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a six-fold
increase from 20 years ago. That has led Social Security beneficiaries
who have had their payments garnished to balloon by 3,000% over the same
period, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
An estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in
default, according to a January report from CFPB.
Debbie McIntyre, a 62-year-old adult education teacher in Georgetown,
Kentucky, is among them. She dreams of retiring and writing more
historical fiction, and of boarding a plane for the first time since
high school. But her husband has been out of work on disability for two
decades and they’ve used credit cards to get by on his meager benefits
and her paycheck. Their rent will be hiked $300 when their lease renews.
McIntyre doesn’t know what to do if her paycheck is garnished.
She floats the idea of bankruptcy, but that won’t automatically clear
her loans, which are held to a different standard than other debt. She
figures if she picks up extra jobs babysitting or tutoring, she could
put $50 toward her loans here and there. But she sees no real solution.
“I don’t know what more I can do,” says McIntyre, who is too afraid to
check what her loan balance is. “I’ll never get out of this hole.”
Braxton Brewington of the Debt Collective debtors union says it’s
striking how many older people dial into the organization’s calls and
attend its protests. Many of them, he says, should have had their debts
cancelled but fell victim to a system “riddled with flaws and
illegalities and flukes.” Many whose educations have left them in
late-life debt have, in fact, paid back the principal on their loans,
sometimes several times over, but still owe more due to interest and
fees.
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Linda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker, stands in front
of her home Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Apache Junction, Ariz. (AP
Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
For those who are subject to garnishment, Brewington says, the results
can be devastating.
“We hear from people who skip meals. We know people who dilute their
medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like
pulling all their savings out or dissolving their 401ks,” he says. “We
know folks that have been driven into homelessness.”
Collections on defaulted loans may have restarted no matter who was
president, though the Biden administration had sought to limit the
amount of income that could be garnished. Federal law protects just $750
of Social Security benefits from garnishment, an amount that would put a
debtor far below the poverty line.
“We’re basically providing people with federal benefits with one hand
and taking them away with another,” says Sarah Sattelmeyer of the New
America think tank.
Linda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Apache Junction,
Arizona, went through garnishment before COVID and says she will survive
it again. But flights to see her children, occasional meals at a
restaurant and other pleasures of retired life may disappear.
“It’s going to mean restrictions,” says Hilton. “There won’t be any
travel. There won’t be any frills.”
Some debtors have already received notice about collections. Many more
are living in fear. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order
calling for the Department of Education’s dismantling and, for those
seeking answers about their loans, mass layoffs have complicated getting
calls answered.
While Education Secretary Linda McMahon says restarting collections is a
necessary step for debtors “both for the sake of their own financial
health and our nation’s economic outlook,” even some of Trump’s most
fervent supporters are questioning a move that will make their lives
harder.
Randall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, California, says a Biden
administration proposal to forgive some student debt didn’t strike him
as fair, but he’s not sure Trump’s approach is either. He supported
Trump but wishes the government made case-by-case decisions on debtors.
Countryman thinks Americans don’t realize how many older people are
affected by policies on student loans, often thought to be the turf of
the young, and how difficult it can be for them to repay.
“What’s a young person’s problem today,” he says, “is an old person’s
problem tomorrow.”
Countryman started working on a degree while in prison, then continued
it at the University of Phoenix when he was released. He started growing
nervous as he racked up loan debt and never finished his degree. He’s
worked a host of different jobs, but finding work has often been
complicated by his criminal record.
He lives off his wife’s Social Security check and the kindness of his
mother-in-law. He doesn’t know how they’d get by if the government
demands repayment.
“I kind of wish I never went to school in the first place,” he says.
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