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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2434
igaa057.2434
Abstracts
Session 6140 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Repaying Student Loan Debt: Implications for Older Women’s Financial Well-Being and Retirement Planning
Miller Julie 1 Brady Samantha 1 Balmuth Alexa 1 D’Ambrosio Lisa 2 Coughlin Joseph 2 1 
MIT AgeLab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
2 
MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”695 695
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Previous research demonstrates that student loan debt disproportionately affects women and is being repaid increasingly by older adults. Utilizing data collected through a mixed methods study at the MIT AgeLab (involving focus groups and a large national survey), we examine the impacts of repaying student loans on older women’s financial wellbeing. Findings focus on multiple areas, including the timing in which older women repaying student loans were able to pay down other debts, change jobs, get married, and pursue further education. Analysis also revealed that student loans impacted the amount that 63% of older women in the study were able to contribute to their retirement savings. Findings from this study suggest that repaying student loan debt for oneself and/or a family member can compromise older women’s near-term and longer-term financial being. Policy reforms are needed to support older women repaying student loans.