Occupy wipes out $4M in student loan debt

[mfcorey1]

Rolling Jubilee, an initiative of the Occupy movement, recently bought up about $3.9 million in private student loan debt for $107,000, according to Time. The debt belonged to 2,761 people who attended Everest College, a for-profit school run by Corinthian Colleges. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently filed suit against Corinthian Colleges for alleged predatory lending.


Time said Rolling Jubilee specifically selected loans for Everest College.


"We chose Everest because it is the most blatant con job on the higher ed landscape," the organizers said. "It's time for all student debtors to get relief from their crushing burden."


How did they retire so much debt for so little? Debts become delinquent when people quit paying them. The original owner of the debt will eventually write it off and sell it for cheap to third-party collectors.


NPR wrote:
Rolling Jubilee has managed to step in instead and buy some of this secondary market debt, using donations raised online -- in this case, buying student loan debt for less than 3 cents on the dollar. But instead of trying to collect this debt, the group makes it disappear.

Of course, wiping out $3.9 million of the nation's $1.2 trillion in student loan debt is barely noticeable. More than 40 million Americans are saddled with student loan debt.

http://money.msn.com/debt-management/article.aspx?post=0ee75c58-16bf-4904-9c3e-7cedd2fd84ce

[KittyWampus]

1. Thanks, I'm tagging this for later. Had forgotten about this.

[tazkcmo]

2. Damn hippies

Next thing you know they'll want incomes to rise so average Americans don't have to eat Top Ramen every day. That's not good for Top Ramen or America!

[pleinair]

3. Good on them

Occupy is helping many people

[jtuck004]

4. Feel good stuff that keeps the problem going. Would be better to organize 40 million

Last edited Fri Sep 19, 2014, 10:07 PM - Edit history (2)

people to give a big fuck you to the government and banks, and stop paying on all student loans until the government restores the university funding that caused part of it, regulates the for-profit arena, opens up free community colleges across the nation (might as well ask). and forgives all the loans without tax consequences.

Add in people who are about to find their homes in foreclosure when interest rates rise on their ARM, along with the 9 million home loans that are underwater today, and the 7 million or so families that have already been foreclosed on - that would be a powerful populist force, and the issues are related. If the problem really is the 1%, that leaves about 312 million potentials for our side, about 4 million for them. How could we not win?

Anyway, might as well - while they have student loans that follow them into Social Security they are just barely a step in front of being a sharecropper, if any.

Wonder what that might do the economy of the wealthy? Those with no money won't see much difference, but those with money will squeal like little piggies.

Sure it will hurt. It hurt people not to ride the buses in Alabama too - buses they needed to get to work. But they did it, because freedom was worth holding their heads up. And the so-called pain and discomfort can be overcome in many cases by cooperation and working with each other, just as it has been done in protests for a long, long time.

What? You say you have to go, your show is on cable...

On edit: Don't get me wrong. I know the organizers care. Until "people" are less comfortable this may well be the best they can do. I know they want a more permanent solution that alters the power structure, etc.

The only one truly helped by this is the business that got the 3 cents on the dollar. Most of the people they helped who were likely in debt and unemployed are now out of debt, but still unemployed. Bill collector be damned - if you ain't got any money, they can go to hell. It takes a burden off the business that profited from it immediately, and maybe or maybe not helps someone who had debt. Unless they just go get more, which is the American way, and what will most likely happen because the changes that are needed to prevent it aren't theirs to make.

Still, something that people can feel good about, if you need it.

[Le Taz Hot]

5. So, what are you doing? n/t

[AllyCat]

6. Thank you!

My thoughts exactly.

[DirkGently]

7. Nice going, Occupy. The wonders of private education never cease. n/t

[Veilex]

8. My only concern in this regard is that those institutions still made out...

Its awesome that Occupy was able to do this.
I'm glad those individuals are out of that trap.
I don't like that those debt predators got a payday out of the deal.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. not as much as they would have if the debt had allowed to continued with the

debt holder making payments for decades

[Veilex]

12. True.

I still wish they had been punished for this style of action, rather than rewarded.

[NuttyFluffers]

10. K&R. hope and change right there.

[lovemydog]

11. Yay Occupy!

I like this a lot. It publicizes the crushing debt of student loans for higher education. It does something concrete that truly helps individuals. By specifying a school, it highlights the worst of the worst. I'm behind Occupy one hundred percent. Just by helping get into the public consciousness the terminology of the upper one and two percent and the remaining 98 or 99%, the Occupy movement shifted awareness toward where it belongs. I've gotten a few of their publications too, for free, on credit card debt and on big banks, and the simple easy to read information is right on target. Keep up the good work Occupy!

[aikoaiko]

13. I, for one, am very impressed. This is direct action.

I will admit that I never understand OWS. When I first heard about and saw the flyer, my reaction was "what good is it to protest Wall Street on a Saturday."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street#mediaviewer/File:Wall-Street-1.jpg

This is good stuff. I think part of the plan was to ask people who had their debt absolved to contribute to the next buy out. I wonder how that part is working.