Posted on 08/02/2016 1:50:28 PM PDT by Lorianne
The letters keep coming, as do the emails. They head, unopened, straight into Jason Osborne’s trash and deleted folder. The U.S. government desperately wants Mr. Osborne and his wife to start repaying their combined $46,500 in federal student debt. But they are among the more than seven million Americans in default on their loans, many of them effectively in a standoff with the government. These borrowers have gone at least a year without making a payment—ignoring hundreds of phone calls, emails, text messages and letters from federally hired debt collectors. Borrowers in long-term default represent about 16% of the roughly 43 million Americans with student debt, now totaling $1.3 trillion across the U.S., and their numbers have continued to climb despite the expanding labor market.
Their failure to repay—in many cases due to low wages or unemployment, in other cases due to outright protest at what borrowers see as an unfair system—threatens to leave taxpayers on the hook for $125 billion, the total amount they owe. The Osbornes say they are the victims of a for-profit school that made false promises and a predatory lender—the government. “Do you think I’m going to give them one penny I’m making to pay back the loan for a job I’m never going to hold?” said Mr. Osborne, 45, who studied to be a health-care worker but can’t find a job as one. The rising number of borrowers in default weakens the economy as underwater homeowners did after the housing crash: by damaged credit, an inability to spend and save for the future, and a lack of resources to move to better jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I am paying off a student loan as we speak. Pisses me off that some people think that paying off a student loan is “optional” or are “fighting the system” by not paying. How about not taking a student loan if you are not going to pay it off?
Free college and all that, right?
Many jobs at #BlacklivesMatter for Black studies majors.
Easiest way to get out of student loans? Register as a Democrat.
Unfair system, right...
One of teamobamas first thing they did. Take over student loans. Keep the masses in debt to gov from craddle to grave. Voters for life.
They tell them they must go to college. The college is run by socialist and they indoctrinate them. Then make them pay for it. Stalin and Mao would be so proud.
obama’s takeover of the student loan system is basically a form of government sponsored slavery.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the Liberal Messiah forgave the student-loan debt just before He leaves office, because He thinks this would end His term as a hero to young people.
If the system's unfair, they probably should have boycotted it entirely, rather than take the money anyway, and opt out halfway through the transaction. What would fix a lot of this crap is if the Feral Goobermint minded their own business, stopped guaranteeing student loans (causing banks to exercise normal due diligence). Then the banks would have some input on people not majoring in German polka history, tuitions would come down, and any remaining issues would be the issues of the people who deserve them, rather than those of the taxpayer.
Heath care professions are hot right now. I wonder what this putz majored in, Art Therapy?
If a couple of hundred thousand of these snowflakes were to lose their cars, phones, and laptops to the repo man, then maybe they would wake up to the dangers of taking out tens of thousands of dollars in unsecured loans before the age of 22.
At the same time, they have a point. The government guarantees these loans, so there is no reason for a bank to turn them down. If the government would get out of the business, the short term effect would be millions of kids who aren’t saddled with debt as they start their adult lives and the long term effect would be the lowering of university costs and high quality of college education.
The government should stop providing a guarantee on student loans, and reverse Clinton’s removal of bankruptcy as an option.
Yet another government made catastrophe.
“who studied to be a health-care worker” this alone tells me the guy is a liar. I’m currently in an active search as I’m not happy in my current situation - can’t tell you how many health-care positions I’ve come across (not my area but close enough I see them in my searches). There are hundreds - either he thinks they are beneath him or he has something else in his background preventing him from getting the role or he’s too lazy to actually try to even apply.
If Trump Univ has a satisfaction rate of 97%, I truly wonder what the sat rate is for Harvard and Yale?
All post secondary schools make false promises about job prospects. Unfortunately because of his age and the way most applications are screened by outside agencies, finding a job even with past experience or up to date training is very difficult.
I can’t get upset about such defaults when the government told us certain businesses were too big to fail and bailed them out. Considering what the school probably charged it would have been cheaper for the tax payer to just give a one time stipend (obviously lower than tuition cost) to him and others in such situations and let them use it how they saw fit. With the understanding that it was a one time only deal.
Debt Strikes: The Wave of the Future.
Once you pass a tipping point of how far out people are extended the power passes to the debtors.
“I am paying off a student loan as we speak. Pisses me off that some people think that paying off a student loan is “optional” or are “fighting the system” by not paying. How about not taking a student loan if you are not going to pay it off?”
Life isn’t fair. If you genuinely can’t pay a debt bankruptcy should be an option. It would lower tuition for everyone if student loans didn’t exist or required an ability to repay based on expected earnings.
Since when were colleges responsible for getting students jobs after graduation?
I was never promised or guaranteed that explicitly. It was always implied because you needed degrees to be eligible for certain positions that required them. You would have a chance at a much broader range of open positions. But it never guaranteed me I would get a job, or my dream job, with the exact salary I wanted. That was all me.
Good grief. First thing I did after getting work and paying for my car was paying off the loans. I double and triple paid them off just to get them taken care of faster. And that meant less money for fun stuff. I took care of debt before fun, before houses, before cars, and optional stuff.
Stupid is supposed to hurt.
L
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