November 21, 2011 - 10:28 am
Is this the higher ed bubble popping? Or are just a bunch of whiny hipster layabouts shirking their duty to pay their debts? Why can’t it be both?
For two months, the Occupy protests have focused attention on student loan debt. Today, a group that started with the Occupy movement will propose a solution: stop paying.
Under the campaign — which grew from the original Occupy Wall Street protest and is now known, inevitably, as Occupy Student Debt — borrowers will pledge to stop repaying their student loans once 1 million people vow to do so as well. The campaign is calling for several reforms of higher education, including free public colleges, no-interest loans, greater transparency at private and for-profit colleges and complete forgiveness of all existing student debt.Most experts, even those who agree with the movement’s aims, would describe these goals as unattainable. The theory behind the campaign is that if 1 million students refuse to pay, they would face minimal consequences due to safety in numbers. But many experts on student finance worry about the impact on anyone who stops paying: student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy; lenders — especially the federal government — will go to great lengths to go after debt; and some borrowers currently frustrated by their debt may not realize the impact of non-payment on future financial goals.Still, Occupy Student Debt, with its concrete plan of action and list of goals, represents an intriguing evolution of the Occupy movement — and one that could reach beyond those protesting.
They’re launching this today, on the heels of their total failure to shut down Wall Street last week. Many occupiers have probably been on this little “plan” for a while. It’s tough to pay the bills on a non-salary from playing drums in the park all day.
Pay up, you little pansies. You wanna be adults–start acting like it.
Some modest student loan reforms (like making them dischargable in bankruptcy) would probably have the same effect on OWS that ending the draft had on Vietnam War protests.
Yeah, that’s a brilliant plan. 5-7 years of undergrad, 3-8 of grad school, all in luxury university apartments with spring breaks in Cancun and a new laptop every year and a couple of semesters of study abroad…six months of hanging around waiting out the grace period….Oh! Lookie here–now I’m bankrupt! Thanks, taxpayers, for subsidizing 15 years of extra adolescence!
How about some modest reforms like approval for renewal after each semester depends on major and GPA, or limiting them to tuition only (room & board, books, fees, extra-curricular stuff–get a job, learn to budget)?
Martin Luthor King wrote about Civil Disobedience;
One of the Elements he included in hs writings regarding Civil Disobedience was a WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT THE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS.
One hallmark of this OWS movement has been a total unwillingness to accept that there are ANY consequences to the actions they have taken. They whine about being pepper sprayed, or hit with rubber bullets after tossing rocks and Molotov Coctails.
I say, let them withold payment, and let them face the consequences.
They will realize that they don’t represent ‘the 99%’ when they try to get 1 million people to not pay their student loans. Good luck to them when they are part of the 1% that are refusing to pay their loans.
– gimme, gimme.