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The federal government is withholding a portion of Social Security benefits from a growing number of older Americans to cover defaulted student loan debt, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. This so-called offset accounted for about $171 million of the $4.5 billion in defaulted student loan debt that the U.S. Department of Education collected in 2015.
The report found that among older borrowers (age 50 and older) who were subject to the offset for the first time between 2001 and 2015, about 43 percent had held their student loans for 20 years or more. And three-quarters of these older borrowers had taken loans only for their own education, with most owing less than $10,000.
