As she was getting on in years and her resources dwindled, Virginia Rayford took out a special kind of mortgage in 2008 that she hoped would help her stay in her three-bedroom Washington rowhouse for the rest of her life. Rayford, 92, took advantage of a federally insured loan called a reverse mortgage that allows cash-strapped seniors to borrow against the equity in their houses that has built up over decades.

This is a call for a public inquiry on the current situation regarding private debt. For almost a decade now, since 2007, we have been living a lie. And that lie is preparing to wreak havoc on our economy. If we do not create some kind of impartial forum to discuss what is actually happening, the results might well prove disastrous.

The U.S. consumer financial watchdog on Monday ordered National College Student Loan Trusts and its debt collector, Transworld Systems Inc, to pay at least $26.1 million for attempting to collect on possibly non-existent or out-of-date loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged that the companies sued borrowers without being able to prove the debt was owed or pursued collection on loans that were too old to sue over, and relied on false and misleading legal documents.

One of the nation’s largest holders of private student-loan debt must refund millions of dollars to borrowers and temporarily stop many of its collection activities, under a settlement with federal regulators announced on Monday. The creditor, the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, holds $12 billion in student loans that were originally made by banks. In Monday’s settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the trusts agreed to pay nearly $19 million in penalties and borrower refunds — and could be on the hook for millions in additional payments and forgiven loans.

A Calgary man who decided to save money by living for years in a travel trailer named Wanda — even when temperatures plunged to –40 C — has finally paid off $85,000 in debt.

Snake Plissken explains to Sallie Mae why he will not be repaying any of his accumulated debt and why they can burn in hell.

Fall behind on your student loan payments, lose your job. Few people realize that the loans they take out to pay for their education could eventually derail their careers. But in 19 states, government agencies can seize state-issued professional licenses from residents who default on their educational debts. Another state, South Dakota, suspends driver’s licenses, making it nearly impossible for people to get to work.

South Korea is to write-off the debts of as many as 1.6 million people in a move designed to ease the financial burden on low-income individuals. The scheme is open to certain Koreans who have struggled to repay debts of less than 10m won ($9,128; £6,826). Eligible people can apply to the government for debt relief from next February.

The $8 detail in the Globe’s Spotlight series on race in Boston is not a typo. The median net worth for non-immigrant African-American households in the Greater Boston region is $8, according to “The Color of Wealth in Boston,” a 2015 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Duke University, and the New School.

With credit card debt hitting new records, some analysts are beginning to worry about the ability of many Americans to pay off rising debt levels. And a new study calculates that up to 31 million Americans with credit card debt believe they will never be able to pay if off and will die with debt.

This report analyzes new data on student debt and repayment, released by the U.S. Department of Education in October 2017. Previously available data have been limited to borrowers only, follow students for a relatively short period (3-5 years) after entering repayment, and had only limited information on student characteristics and experiences.

Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, I calculated various wealth series for young families with heads below the age of 35. Here is median net worth for young families. I include both the net worth concept used by the Federal Reserve and a modified net worth concept that excludes vehicles. Insofar as vehicles are rapidly depreciating consumer durables, many argue that they should not be counted as assets for these purposes. Without these vehicles, the median young family had a net worth of $1,250 in 2016. This was down from the $7,846 peak in 1995.

The Government must reconsider “punitive” high interest rates on student loans and look at bringing back maintenance grants for poorer students, an influential Commons committee has said. Cross-party MPs on the Treasury Committee said that the Government should re-examine the student loan system which allows "high-flying lawyers" to pay less back than teachers.

Americans' reliance on household debt ─ and poor people's struggles to pay it off ─ has fueled a collection industry that forces many of them into jail, a practice that critics call a misuse of the criminal justice system. The accusation is documented in a report by The American Civil Liberties Union, which spent more than a year investigating collection methods across the country, saying it found more than 1,000 cases in 26 states in which judges, acting on the request of a collection company, issued arrest warrants for people they claimed owed money for ordinary debts, such as student loans, medical expenses, unpaid rent and utility bills.

Billionaire philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates will pay off $76 million of Nigeria's debt through their namesake foundation. The payments, which will be made over the course of 20 years, are due to begin this year.

U.S. consumers’ total credit card debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, according to a new study by the personal finance website WalletHub. Consumers took on an additional $92.2 billion in debt last year, the highest single-year amount since 2007. The average U.S. household owes $8,600 on credit cards, WalletHub found.

On March 22, 2018, a report was released by the Student Loan Study that raised a few eyebrows across the space. A survey of 1,000 college students with student debt were asked the simple question: The results were astounding with 21.2 percent answering in the affirmative. Although the details of the methodology used in the survey have been kept relatively vague and leave questions as to whether the subset selected could provide a realistic estimation, a case can be madefor these surprising results.

The United States is the only country with an advanced economy that will see its public debt ratio increase over the next three to five years, according to a new report issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As the ratio rises, so will tax rates and America's inability to stabilize the economy during recessionary periods, experts say. Because of the increased government spending and borrowing required by President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and two-year budget deal, the U.S. will take on deficits above $1 trillion over the next three years...

A draft of the World Bank's annual flagship World Development Report says that its creditor-states (the poorest countries in the world) should eliminate their minimum wage rules, allow employers to fire workers without cause, and repeal laws limiting abusive employment contract terms. The bank argues that this is necessary to stop employers from simply investing in automation and eliminating workers altogether.

Millions of students will arrive on college campuses soon, and they will share a similar burden: college debt. The typical student borrower will take out $6,600 in a single year, averaging $22,000 in debt by graduation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. There are two ways to measure whether borrowers can repay those loans: There’s what the federal government looks at to judge colleges, and then there’s the real story. The latter is coming to light, and it’s not pretty.