The retired children’s welfare worker, 73, is about to be affected by the 40 -year -old student loans debt.

Christine Farro has trimmed the gifts that his grandchildren send on his birthdays, and stopped taking two cats and a dog for his shots. All his clothes come from prosperity shops and most of his vegetables come from his garden. At the age of 73, he has reduced his costs as much as he can live with a tight budget.

But it is about to make it much narrower.

As a Trump administrationSummarize collections in default student loansAn amazing population has been trapped on the cross: hundreds of thousands of Americans older than their debts decades now put them at risk of having their social security checks.

“I worked ridiculous hours. I worked on weekends and nights. But I could never pay,” says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa Ynez, California.

As millions of debtors with loans for federal students, Farro had their payments and their interests paused by government five years ago When pandemic incorporated many financial problems. That period of grace ended in 2023 and earlier this month the Department of Education said he would Reboot “Involuntary Collections” By recovering payments, tax returns and retirement benefits of Social Security and disability benefits. Farro previously had his social safety and hopes that he would restart.

Farro loans go back to 40 years. She was a single mother when she received a degree in Development Psychology and when she discovered that she couldn’t win enough to pay her loans, returned to school and obtained a masters degree. His salary never caught. Things only worsened.

Around 2008, when he consolidated his loans, he paid $ 1,000 a month, but years of lost payments and of accumulated interest meant that he was barely putting a law on a bill that had increased to $ 250,000. When he sought help to resolve his debt, he says that the loans had a single suggestion.

“They said,” moving to a cheaper state, “says Farro, who rent a 400-foot-feet-footed house.” I realized that I was living in a different reality than they were. “

Student loan debt among the elderly has grown at an impressive rate, in part due to the increase in enrollments that have forced more people to provide larger sums. 60 -year -old peopleKeep an estimated amount of $ 125 million in student loansAccording to the National Consumer Law Center, an increase of six times for 20 years. This has led the Social Security beneficiaries that have had their payments garnishedin balloon by 3,000% in the same periodaccording to the consumer’s financial protection office.

It is estimated that 452,000 62 -year -olds had a default student loans, according to a CFPB January report.

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 boarding a plane for the first time from high school. But her husband has been without work in disability for two decades and have used credit cards to get their few benefits and pay. Your rent will be $ 300 when your lease is renewed. Mcintyre does not know what to do if your salary is decorated.

She floats the idea of ​​bankruptcy, but this will not automatically delete your loans, which are kept at a standard different from the debt. She estimates if you collect additional nanny work or tutoring, she could put $ 50 to her loans here and there. But he does not see a real solution.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” says Mcintyre, who is too afraid to check what the balance of his loan is. “I will never get out of this hole.”

Braxton Brewington, of the union of collective debt debtors, says that the number of elderly people who mark the organization’s calls and attend their protests is striking. He says, many of them should have canceled their debts, but they fell victims of a system “full of defects and illegality and flakes”. Many of the educations that have left them in the debt of late life, in fact, have returned the main one in their loans, sometimes several times, but still owe more for interest and fees.

For those who are subject to garrison, according to Brewington, the results can be devastating.

“We feel about people who jump their meals. We know people who dilute the medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like removing all their savings or dissolving their 401ks,” he says. “We meet people who have been led to the homeless.”

Default loans collections may have been restarted, regardless of who were president, although the Biden administration had sought to limit the amount of income that could be adorned. Federal law protects only $ 750 of social security benefits of recovery, an amount that would place a debtor well below the poverty line.

“We basically provide people with federal benefits with one hand and remove them with another,” says Sarah Sattelmeyer, of the New America Think Tank.

Linda HiltonA 76 -year -old retired worker from Apache Junction, Arizona, went through the garrison before Covid and says he will survive it again. But you want to see their children, occasional meals can disappear in a restaurant and other retired life pleasures.

“It will sign restrictions,” says Hilton. “There will be no trip. There will be no row.”

Some debtors have already received a warning about collections. Many more live in fear. President Donald Trump has signed an executive ordershouting the dismantling of the Department of EducationAnd, for those looking for answers on their loans, mass dismissals have fulfilled calls.

While the Secretary of Education Linda McMahonSays to restart collections is a necessary step for debtors“Both for the sake of their own financial health and the economic perspectives of our nation,” even some of Trump’s most fervent supporters question a move that will make life more.

Randall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, California, says that a Biden administration proposal to forgive some student debt did not achieve it as fair, but it is not sure that the Trump approach. He supported Trump, but wants the Government to make decisions for debtors. Countryman believes that North -Americans do not realize how many older people are affected by student loans policies, they are often thought to be the lawn of young people and how difficult it can be they can pay.

“What is the problem of a young man today,” he says, “is the problem of a person who tomorrow.”

Countryman started working on a title while in prison, then continued at Phoenix University when he was released. It began to grow nervous when it accumulated loan debts and never ended the title. He has worked a number of different jobs, but his work has often been complicated by his criminal record.

He lives on his wife’s social security control and the goodness of his mother -in -law. You don’t know how they could get if the government requires a refund.

“I wish I had never gone to school first,” he says.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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