Bloomberg – “Twenty-seven percent of education loans held by people age 65-74 were in default in 2013, meaning they hadn’t made a payment in 270 days or more. More than half of education loans held by people 75 and older were in default. And the government can garnish wages or suspend tax refunds for anyone who fails to pay their student loans, but it has an extra tool when it comes to senior citizens: taking money out of their Social Security payments. In 2013, 155,000 seniors lost part of their retirement benefit to repay education debt, up from 31,000 in 2002, according to the GAO. “There’s no statute of limitations, so these loans go with you to your death,” says John Rao, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, a consumer rights nonprofit. “That makes it different for someone who is elderly who might think at a certain point in their life they are immune from collections.”