Older people outnumber younger people with student loans, and they owe far more.

A common popular belief about student loans is that they are a young person’s problem. It is generally assumed that most borrowers are able to have their loans repaid by their mid-30’s, or perhaps their early 40’s at the latest. People 50 or older who haven’t yet repaid their loans, conventional wisdom holds, are the outliers. This, however, is…