The more I read about it, the more shocking the story becomes about student loan debt.
It is just disgraceful that young people have to start their lives drowning in debt incurred to get an education. How can you expect them to be able to buy homes and cars and start families in this kind of situation?
I’m sorry, but we have to find some better way for young people to get their education- or re-look at the educational system. Admittedly, many young people go to college who probably shouldn’t; we need to remind people we need plumbers and electricians as much- or more- than we need more lawyers and stock brokers. And we need to support that balance by leveling the income gap.
The young people are smart enough to realize this, too. Income inequality is the core issue here….
Now, it appears student loans are driving these kids to prostitution. This is not the first article I’ve read on this….
Another way for the rich to exploit the young and poor…
The young man standing next to the “Jail Sallie Mae, Cancel All Student Loan Debt” sign in Liberty Plaza last night could very well end up in jail himself – not for protesting economic injustice and marching on Wall Street, but for doing sex work to pay off his student loans. “My loans are $1,300 a month,” he said. “My rent is $1,300 a month. My salary is $2,600 a month. You can see the problem. So I work as a prostitute for food and utilities.”
Though he works a day job in the tech sector, it’s not enough to get by. “But it could be worse,” he continued. “I could have to do sex work for all of it.”
With the Department of Education estimating that outstanding US student loan debt will soon exceed $1 trillion and job growth stalled, students face the very real prospect that there’s no way to ever pay back their debts. As of this May, new graduates are leaving college with an average of $22,900 in debt each, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, makes the class of 2011 the most indebted in history. They are members of a generation of students who knew taking out loans to finance a degree – or two – was a gamble on their own futures. As Lindsay Personett, a recent graduate from Oklahoma City University, put it at Wednesday’s solidarity march to support the Wall Street occupiers, “Kids are told to get this expensive degree and you’ll get a job. You end up owing too much and owning nothing.”
Wednesday also saw solidarity walk-outs to Occupy Wall Street from hundreds of students from the New School, New York University, Columbia University, and several CUNY campuses. According to CBS Local, 150 students walked out at Brooklyn College to join the tens of thousands in Foley Square and Liberty Plaza. The student walk-outs are part of a larger national walk-out action, supported by OccupyColleges.org, which spanned at least 100 campuses across the US. Their demands go beyond calls for “job creation.” They are questioning the convergence of interests in the education and financial systems that require them to take on soaring, unforgivable, high-interest debt in order to get an education.
Lost in the 21st Century 
Sallie Mae is a total joke! I have about $50,000 in student loans (part from my undergrad after my scholarship ran out and the rest from a run at a master’s degree that was killed by my cancer diagnosis and subsequent disability), some through Sallie Mae and others through NelNet. When my wife and I had to declare bankruptcy, the lawyers told me that the retainer would be more than doubled if I wanted them to take a run at getting the student loans cancelled. They warned me that it would lengthen the process, require me to appear in court (otherwise I would only have to appear briefly before a U.S. trustee), and would probably not work. Apparently federal judges are biased against college students.
Anyway, NelNet and Sallie Mae both have procedures for getting loans forgiven. A simple form, signed by my doctor, a three-year probationary period, and if I’m still disabled at the end of those years, poof! the loans are gone. NelNet accepted my app and the process is ongoing. Sallie Mae has been nothing but trouble. First, they told me that they didn’t accept faxed forms–even though I was told to fax it. Months went by before they notified me. Then I sent the form in by mail and was told that the signature was too old–months later. Someone in their office drew a new signature line and date line on the form in ink, so I had my doctor re-sign it. I sent it in, and I’m still waiting. This whole time, they keep harassing me with bills, collection notices, and although they’ve kept granting me 12-month deferrals, they take months to process them, so, for example, if a deferral runs out and it takes 7 months for them to finally process it and send it over, the deferral dates, not from the day of them granting it, but from the day the previous one expired. One time it took over a year for them to grant me a deferral, and when they did, the 12 months of “relief” were applied to a year-long-period entirely in the past–I needed to apply for another deferral immediately! And they report all of this to the credit agencies and refuse to retract it.
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