and some cosigned loans for their kids. It wasn’t all 40+ years ago.

Edited to add: Many with advanced degrees paid a lot more and still couldn’t find decent paying work in academia.

....they didn't do their "due diligence".

My dream career was to be an architect. But at the time I was applying to colleges we evaluated the prospect of getting a job after graduation - at the time there was a glut of architects, so I shifted to engineering.

instead of hiring faculty.

There. Was. No. Work.

I'm 61, graduated from college 40 years ago. I was fortunate in that, between us, my parents and I covered my costs, but still my tuition at a private school was very affordable.

I suppose if I had gone back for advanced degrees in later years I may have accrued debt.

Oh wait, I just read this in the tweet:

...and you're correct that their children would be in their 30s and 40s. Anyone who still owes on tuition loans at that point in their lives is doing something wrong. Lucky you had responsible children.

Back in the '60s when I applied to colleges, I was accepted by some of the best schools in the city, if not the state at that time:

NYU Engineering School, tuition was $1500/year (total $6000)
Pratt Institute School of Architecture, tuition was $1200/year (total $4800)
CUNY Engineering School, tuition was $0
Cooper Union School of Engineering, a highly rated private college with a 100% academic scholarship

No question about which I attended.

At any rate, tuition back then wasn't what it is today. If someone with a college degree is still paying off a student loan 40 years later something is drastically wrong. My first job out of college paid $10,000 - had I gone to NYU there was no excuse for still having debt at 65!

It's very doubtful that very many still owe on their own college loans after 40 years (although it took me 20 years to pay off the last of them). This statement isn't false, although I trust very little that comes from the tweet of BJG.

I remember a lot of that in the Bush Recession.

...he had to quit high school in the 1930s to go to work and support the family.

He did quite well for himself.

'Fastest growing' reads as something large and ballooning. But a population of ten increased by two to twelve is growing faster than a population of one hundred increased by nineteen, if one takes the percentage value of the increase.

People go back to school, for a variety of reasons, at some advanced age. This segment may be increasing more rapidly in percentage terms than the number of younger students. Indeed it can do this while being a quite small proportion of new students.

"If a man will continue to insist two and two do not make four, I know of nothing in the power of argument to stop up his mouth."

retraining after their jobs were eliminated. Go Joe!

My own numbers: I graduated from school in 1991 with $39k of undergrad and post-grad loans.

I paid them off mostly on time for 28 years, except during job loss and illness.

From 2015-2019 alone I paid around $24k on them. (I couldn't get the records for the other years from the government)

Amount owing in May 2019: $33k.

They were written off as "returned to the government," and I was paying $100 a month in "collection costs" even though no collection actions were ever instigated (no garnishments or anything) because I kept paying on my own. They couldn't be refinanced. My payments during those years, never less than $500 a month, weren't even making a dent.

Last year I borrowed the $33k from a relative and now I'm paying that person back. In 3 more years they'll be paid off, something that never would have happened with the same amount of money going to the government, as the interest, penalties, and fees kept accruing.

And I'm 70 years old now.