Students aged 60-plus rack up $85m in debt

A big increase in older people taking on student loan debt has raised fears that millions of dollars of taxpayers' money will never be repaid.

People 60 and over have taken on about $85 million in student loan debt, according to latest figures, and politicians warn that cash offers are enticing senior citizens into debt they can never repay.

Statistics from the Integrated Dataset on Student Loan Borrowers, for the period 1997 to 2004, show 6008 borrowers aged 60 or over owed an average of $14,255.41.

These people have much less time to pay off their loans than young borrowers, leaving the debt to be written off when they die, and often their income is less than the threshold requiring loan repayments.

In 2000, 511 people 60 and over took on student loans, and in 2004 that rose to 1624.

Of those who left study in 1999 aged 60 or over, 10 per cent had completely repaid their loans by March 31, 2003, compared with 25 per cent of the 45-49 year age bracket.

"I struggle with the concept that money will be lent to people who are not working and can't pay it back," said Grey Power national president Graham Stairmand.

Tertiary Education Minister Michael Cullen told the Herald he was aware of the issue and was looking into it.

He told National MP Pansy Wong in Parliament last week: "One of the slightly stranger features of the student loan scheme is that once one reaches a certain age, in effect one does not have to pay the loan back."

National Party education spokesman Bill English said it was difficult to discriminate on age. "It's hard to know just where you would say anyone was too old to be interested in learning.

"I don't think many old people would consciously try to rip off the system. If there's a problem at the moment it's more to do with some institutions ripping off the system and exploiting older people to do it."