Student Loan Debt Update

Millions of students will arrive on college campuses soon, and they will share a similar burden: college debt. The typical student borrower will take out $6,600 in a single year, averaging $22,000 in debt by graduation. There are two ways to measure whether borrowers can repay those loans: There’s what the federal government looks at to judge colleges, and then there’s the real story. The latter is coming to light and it’s not pretty.

Of borrowers who started repaying in 2012, just over 10 percent had defaulted three years later. That’s not too bad but it’s not the whole story. Federal data never before released shows that the default rate continued climbing to 16 percent over the next two years, after official tracking ended, meaning more than 841,000 borrowers were in default. Nearly as many were severely delinquent or not repaying their loans. The share of students facing serious struggles rose … Read More

Millennials in debt and most of it is not from student loans

Over 44 million Americans have student loans, with the average debt hovering around $33,000. And yet that’s not the number one source of debt for the average older millennial. Millennials between the ages of 25 and 34 have an average of $42,000 in debt each, the biggest source being credit card debt. Credit card balances make up a full fourth of the average older millennials owe, while student debt accounted for about 16 percent. The findings are based on a survey of over 2,000 U.S. adults, including an oversampling of more than 600 millennials.

As you grow older, your expenses increase. The additional pressures that come onto the pocketbook only grow and your disposable income shrinks in a lot of cases, even if your salary is growing. The pressure to start relying on credit cards makes a lot of sense. Millennials also cope with many other financial burdens that other generations … Read More

Retirement and Working Part Time – Know the Facts

If you start taking Social Security before your full retirement age, earning more than $17,040 from work will reduce your benefits temporarily. Once you’re on Medicare, extra income could potentially trigger surcharges for parts B and D. Also, don’t overlook your required minimum distributions from retirement accounts once you reach age 70½.

After leaving a 40 hour work week behind, many retirees end up taking on part-time work even if it wasn’t part of their initial retirement plan. Today’s retirees are active and want to continue being productive in some way, it brings them a sense of value that they had in their long-time professional career. More than half of people ages 60 to 64 were working at least part time in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the 65-to-69 crowd, nearly a third were in the workforce last year. If you find yourself among those who return … Read More