Student-loan debt is not just a problem for young, recent college graduates searching for their first jobs. Growing numbers of adults nearing the ends of their careers are accumulating such big debt, too, and they don't have a lifetime to pay it back. In fact, student-loan debt is growing fastest among adults ages 60 and older, with more than two…

Over the past five years, the number of complaints filed against agencies collecting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education has grown by 45 percent. The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees the entire industry, received 142,743 complaints involving debt-collection companies last year, though only some involved student loans. Consumer…

When students or recent graduates come to talk with Anthony M. Sozzo, an associate dean for student affairs at New York Medical College, about repaying their federal loans, he sometimes struggles with what to tell them. He states that the answers are increasingly being complicated by an ever-expanding federal loan-servicing system. The number of…

As the cost of college has spiraled ever upward and median family income has fallen, the loan program, called Parent PLUS, has become indispensable for increasing numbers of parents desperate to make their children's college plans work. Last year the government disbursed $10.6-billion in Parent PLUS loans to just under a million families. Even…

As the nation's student-loan debt surpasses the $1-trillion mark, alarming students, parents, and politicians, few are thinking about the effects it is having on people like Michael J. Trivette, a 28-year-old graduate student in higher education at the University of Georgia. Two-thirds of Ph.D. and other doctoral students and nearly three-quarters…

Efforts to keep higher education affordable for all students and to promote not only access, but success--all in a climate of dwindling state appropriations and lean budgets--made the past year one of reckoning for colleges. Total outstanding student-loan debt hit the $1-trillion mark as federal officials scrambled to ease the burden on borrowers,…

In this article, the author examines the issue of student debt. Despite tales of gargantuan student debt burdens for some college graduates, studies show that most students borrow sensibly, pay it back, and are better off for having gone to college. But for a vocal minority of borrowers, problems with student-loan debt are very real. About 8…

This nation's federal student-loan system has reached a tipping point that, with the new leadership in Washington, offers a rare opportunity to create real change. To create a more consumer-focused student-loan program with both public and private capital, the Education Department, lenders, colleges in both programs, guarantors, and others should…

The American student-aid system has long been based on a tacit promise to provide students with the means to complete their college education and ensure that money is not a barrier to getting a degree. Unfortunately, says the writer, student aid has become little more than a marketing mechanism that permits colleges to maximize tuition dollars…

In this article, the author observes that the economic recession gripping the United States has already had a negative impact on its higher-education system at a time when it is more important than ever to have an innovative, well-educated work force to succeed in an increasingly competitive and global job market. Although federal student loans…

The complexity of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (Fafsa) has been well documented and exhaustively discussed: At six pages and 120 questions, it is longer than even the 1040 tax form, with its two pages and 76 questions (not including schedules). The Fafsa's length and unfamiliar language--terms like "emancipated minor" and…

This article reports that members of Congress were poised to leave Washington last week with some major higher-education accomplishments to campaign on and a slate of unfinished business important to colleges. Topping the higher-education to-do list for the next Congressional session is federal spending for the 2009 fiscal year, which began…

As he begins retirement this month after 40 years of federal service, the Education Department's departing inspector general, John P. Higgins Jr., sees one area that stands out for its susceptibility to costly waste and abuse. That area, Higgins said in an interview as he finished packing up his office, is student lending. Unless Congress greatly…

Web sites that allow borrowers to compare student loans proliferated in the wake of last year's scandals that exposed conflicts of interest in the lending industry. Now the credit crunch is shifting demand for loan-comparison sites again, providing both new challenges and opportunities. More financial-aid officers are also pointing their students…

College prices rose only slightly faster than inflation for the 2008-2009 academic year, but that may say more about the American economy's steeper prices for everything than it does about college costs. Tuition and fees rose between 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent for various types of institutions, similar to previous years, but a 5.6-percent…