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.
Same here; I worked my way through college.
Of course. To distract us from other things as well.
There is agony involved I n paying your debts, but there should be.
Now THAT was a good one, Libloather!
“I agree that college tuition costs are out of reason and inflating out of control. However, no one has ever forced a student to make a Student Loan. If you make the deal, live up to it.”
The unfortunate truth is that there is no way for the most indebted kids to pay it back, regardless of the deal they made.
The first step is to make future loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. This will force universities to adjust their pricing to reflect the reality of the earning capacity of their graduates.
What we do with the rest of the hopelessly indebted is another matter. It is useless to insist that many pay it back if they will not and cannot pay it back. So at some point you have to let them default. It’s just an unpleasant fact that all the posturing and insisting will not change.
I’m putting two kids through college right now - without loans. It’s damn expensive, and it’s not making me happy that much of the tuition I pay subsidizes other students who cannot or won’t pay. Many of my kids peers are on track to impossible debt. It can’t continue - as a matter of mathematics - and so it will not.
FYI. You know the dummies plan on ‘Occupy the Thanksgiving Parade’, right?
Bad idea.
OK, I didn’t study business, either. Her payment would have to be $300 a month, instead of the $118 she has been paying, to retire the debt in ten years. The difference between a new car and a used car. Still doable and still worth doing.
She could have been on the right side of the savings rate for the last thirteen years, instead she volunteered to stay shackled to her bank.
If she had been socking away $300 a month, first paying the bank and then into savings, she would be $38,000 ahead instead of $45,000 behind.
I also know students who are able to receive enough money in student loans that they have extra after tuition and books so they end up spending it all at the bars. I’ve heard these students brag about all the money they get “for free”... That’s the problem.
When college becomes “free” for students, it will devolve into a 4-8 year party on the taxpayers dime. If there is no sacrifice on the student’s part to motivate them to succeed, the results will be miserable. Then, when they “graduate”, they’ll be even more unprepared for the job market, as they will have spent their formative years UNLEARNING the skills they will need to succeed. Pure madness.
“They want student loans to be interest-free, tuitions at public institutions to be federally funded”
I suppose it’s simply an exercise in futility to point out that these kids are financially illiterate, even after their educations from which they are hopelessly indebted.
The universities are the culprits here. They are willing to destroy their graduates futures to sustain profligate spending and lavish administration budgets. The real solution, of course, involves market rates for any loans made and the ability to discharge them in bankruptcy (thus assuring that most loans will not be made). Only then will universities focus on the business for which they primarily exist.
It’s not a good decade to be (or become) a humanities professor.
It is a good t;hing that these people did not get their student loans from the government through Obamacare. If they default on those loans there is a mandatory military service that they will have to do.
The communists knew that they had to destroy the educational system to break America - so they did.
Our kids expect the school to provide everything, books, paper pencils, batteries, Klenex, food that they may want or need. Why wouldn't they expect it to be provided when they matriculate?
Our youth will implement death panels to provide what they want.
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A mass default on student debt would mean that loans for education would disappear.
Such a action would certainly pop the “big education” bubble. Many schools would fail, tuitions would drop drastically, and academics would be put out on the street.
“Such a action would certainly pop the “big education” bubble. Many schools would fail, tuitions would drop drastically, and academics would be put out on the street.”
More than a few “University Towns” would be depopulated as the legions of “support” jobs - with health benefits, pensions, vacation time, etc. evaporate
It’s going to happen one way or another. It’s not possible to continue indefinitely as things are today.
Student loans don't work like car loans. Student loans can be deferred and postponed for many reasons, but the interest continues to accumulate.
The real problem is sky-rocketing tuition which is due to out-of-control government grants and subsidies of schools which leads to bloated salaries for teachers, professors, and administrators and huge building sprees on campus. The idea is to keep the schools and the students dependent on big government.
Womyn’s studies, black studies, gay studies, art appreciation and the whole raft of other useless liberal degrees don’t pay the bills.
If they weren’t going to earn a degree that would get them a job then they shouldn’t have been given the loan in the first place Loans should be restricted based on the targetted degree. No aid for garbage degrees at all
I ran some numbers and she could be correct. She'd be an idiot, but could be right. I made some big assumptions. Let's say she took 6 years to get through school. She doesn't seem too bright, so a logical assumption. And, let's assume a constant interest rate and constant payments throughout the 23 faithful years.
That means she borrowed $4,440 per year, deferred the interest 6 years for the first year, 5 for the second, etc. And let's assume she started her $118.48 payments 1 year after graduation (again, not too bright, so it took her a while to find a job in applied macrame or whatever her degree was in). For her to owe $45,276.63 after 23 years, her interest rate would be about 4.3%.
Going back to deferred interest, her principal when she started paying it off would have been $37,343.55. So, her problem was that she made a payment of $118.48 when the interest alone for the first month was $134.23. She could pay until Kingdom come, but if she pays less than the interest, she isn't going to pay it off. She would have needed to make payments of $208.37 to have paid it off in 23 years. So, quit your whining (her, not you) and pay more.
You may have hit the nail on the head. I'll bet most of these ungrateful creeps thought their degrees in Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology and Humanities would get them 6 figure salaries.
I'll also bet they also loved the status of going to the top schools. Sort of like 1% wannabees but are now angry because they will never get there without actually working hard.
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