US students drowning in tuition debt

[Orrex]

59. Step one is to eliminate the usurious penalties and fees applied

I took out a total of $21,000 in student loans and paid back about $6000 before I fell behind due to long-term financial hardship. After exhausting my deferments and forbearance, and after suffering fees and penalties, I now owe upward of $30,000. I have no problem repaying the original loan amount plus interest, but the penalties are outrageous and should be stopped retroactively.

Step two is to require lenders to provide a specific, detailed, and transparent amortization schedule, so that victims of student loan debt can see the actual hardship that their debt will cause them for years or decades.

Step three is to make the loans dischargeable through bankruptcy. This would make the loans less attractive to lenders in the first place, as it should; that would rein in their predatory tactics and protect the victims from a lifetime of unjust financial burden.

I would submit that not one student loan applicant in 100,000 has any idea--nor any way to determine--the true cost of student loans. This is not due to irresponsibility, as is often claimed by advocates for the lending corporations; rather, it is due to the deliberately impenetrable language of the loan agreements and the hard-sell predatory lending tactics of those corporations and the universities so eager to rake in this mountain of free money.


Before someone invokes the famous million dollars that a college graduate will earn more than his non-college educated peer, I say spare me. I can point you to a great analysis of why that's a bullshit claim with little basis in reality.