Posted on 11/22/2011 3:53:24 AM PST by Cardhu
A number of student organizers in the US have unveiled what they call an 'Occupy Student Debt' campaign, urging borrowers across the country to default on their college loans.
The campaign was made public Monday afternoon in New York's Zuccotti Park, where the national Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement emerged, the Huffington Post reported.
“Since the first days of the Occupy movement, the agony of student debt has been a constant refrain,” said Andrew Ross, a professor at New York University and an active OWS member, while addressing a crowd in the park
“We've heard the harrowing personal testimony about the suffering and humiliation of people who believe their debts will be unplayable in their lifetime,” Ross said.
Meanwhile, the campaigns “beliefs” or objectives were announced during the rally.
The student movement has four major objectives, apart from convincing all students to default on their loans, a move for which they have collected one million signatures in a petition.
They want student loans to be interest-free, tuitions at public institutions to be federally funded, students' debt to be written off and financial records of for-profit and private institutions to be made public.
“I see my students who have to work not only one but two jobs just to afford our relatively reasonable tuition rates,” said Ashley Dawson, an associate professor at the City University of New York.
“For students faced with debt, this campaign is important because it will help provide them with a collective organizing vehicle,” Dawson said.
The campaign emerged as an offshoot of the OWS, which has now spread across major US cities as well as many capitalist countries in the world.
Members of the OWS movement have for the past two months been protesting against corporate greed, unemployment, corruption and poverty in the United States.
I just love a good rant to start my day...thanks!
the agony of student debt has been a constant refrain,” said Andrew Ross, a professor at New York University
Why am I not hearing a suggestion that the schools rebate the loans? Hey, if they all feel that strongly, forgive the loans.
Why am I not hearing the schools roll back their tuition?
Instead the best advice is to default and walk away from those loans?
Ludicrous.
Gee, took me 7 years to get through. If I could only afford one course a semester, that’s all I took. No loans.
Yup... why should only the OWSers benefit... I figure, the rest of us need debt relief, too!
A lot of good information there TSgt for those that can take advantage of it.
Yep that pic is total BS.
I went ten years to university, undergraduate and graduate and I never took out a loan. I guess it was dirt-cheap in my time and now things have changed but still...
Today, EVERYONE is "entitled" to whatever they want, whether they can AFFORD it, or not, and are assured that they can run up mortgages, credit card bills, Loans, etc., and then just say "somebody else should pay for this".
We've seen vote-buying with taxpayers' dollars on a MASSIVE scale over the past Democrat-controlled Congress (and RINO-assisting votes), to make sure the Lobbyists/Banks are not left holding the bag.
Now, it's BLATANT and FLAGRANT appeals for handouts.....we are in really bad shape financially in the USA today, but worse, we are MORALLY BANKRUPT, too.
I wonder what these caring young OWS souls think about how their antics will impact student loans for their younger brothers and sisters?
I’m sure they don’t give a damn.
Pay back the loans you took, you socialist fools. If you have a problem go steal from the coddled-class professors who make an incredible amount for dubious production-value. Maybe the professors will hire you to take out their trash or wash their new car.
Could be - student loan debt now exceeds all Credit Card debt.
I don’t feel like paying my electric bi....
Any of these student loan debtors that get arrested at one of these protests should have their interest rate raised 10%...
I don’t blame the kids.
The people are the top are louts.
If Congress isn’t serious about fiscal discipline, why should we expect our children to sacrifice?
We can’t expect our kids to do the right thing, if we don’t see the example.
That’s what we haven’t been doing. And they’re right - we’ve failed them!
You don’t understand, though. All those programs require participation at some level. You know, an effort getting too close to the ‘work’ word. No, what they want is to be reimbursed or better yet paid to be useless.
This person is a moron. Clearly she did not study math in school...
She has been paying $117 a month for twenty-three years, falling behind a little more each year. If she had just paid $140 a month, she could have retired the loan in ten. One Starbucks coffee a week, is all it would have taken...
That they didn’t have the best of examples may be quite true, but at the end of the day the only people who failed these idiots is themselves. They are, supposedly, adults - after all, they can vote, drive and drink, can’t they - so they are, ultimately, responsible for their own actions, and in particular are responsible for managing their own financial affairs in a prudent manner.
Anyone with half a brain can see that going $50k to $100k into debt for a degree that leads to a job paying $20k to $40k a year is sheer idiocy, so those amongst these babies who couldn’t even make that simple calculation deserve their own fate.
You’re right.
I didn’t see “play bongo drums” as an option.
My apologies. ;)
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