

Student Loans and DOE S.W.A.T. Teams - billswift
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.4010

======
pzb
Every federal department has an Inspector General and the employees are
federal agents authorized to carry firearms and conduct raids. However
contrary to the article, the OIG agents, like all other officers, have to get
a judge to sign the warrant and approve it for no-knock service.

A few examples: NASA OIG: <http://oig.nasa.gov/> USPS Postal Inspectors:
<https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/> National Endowment for the Arts:
<http://www.nea.gov/about/OIG/Contents.html>

All Inspectors General: <http://www.ignet.gov/igs/homepage1.html>

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subway
The author's misuse of the acronym DOE is rather distracting -- DOE typically
refers to the Department of Energy here in the US. The Department of Education
(or Education Department) typically uses "ED".

~~~
yaix
Thanks. I was wondering how many US gov departments were using the same
initial.

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iskander
>The most likely crime being investigated is student aid fraud, which is an
immense problem especially at inner-city colleges. Because of the ease of
obtaining government grants and loans, students can register for different
programs under multiple names and Social Security numbers.

Worth noting: this stuff happens mostly w/ public institutions, since the
private ones are under harsher guidelines and a lot more scrutiny.

~~~
smashing
What harsher guidelines? Do you have a citation for this?

I would think the much greater number of students who attend public schools
would also correlate to greater instances of fraud. There is no mention of any
relation as a percentage.

~~~
iskander
I learned the above by speaking with employees at a private for-profit school,
but when I went looking for supporting evidence I found I've been somewhat
misinformed. The private school loan default rates are much worse than public
schools:

[http://www.quickanded.com/2010/09/repayment-rates-vs-
cdrs.ht...](http://www.quickanded.com/2010/09/repayment-rates-vs-cdrs.html)

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jevinskie
"...unlike a house, an education cannot be repossessed."

Electroshock therapy until the loans are repaid in full? On a more serious
note, I had no idea that the DoE has paramilitary forces busting down doors.
Why is a polite knock not sufficient? Does it not instill enough fear into
other students who are or may default on their loans?

~~~
wvoq
Presumably so students will have no advance warning to flush their diplomas
down the toilet.

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adammichaelc
Can anybody confirm that the DOE really sent a SWAT-like team just to collect
on a debt? If this is confirmed, this should be very alarming to us.

~~~
commandar
DoE OIG released a statement saying that they were investigating a criminal
fraud case, not unpaid student loans.

~~~
hugh3
Sigh. I'm tired of the internet, and its nonstop flow of stories which sound
outrageous when you read the summary but rapidly sound a bit more sensible
when you find out the details.

~~~
kjksf
I'm not sure if sending S.W.A.T.-like team to "investigate" is sensible.

The U.S. managed to investigate things by sending detectives for a long time.
Other countries seem to manage the policing without the need for equivalent of
S.W.A.T.

S.W.A.T. teams are equivalent of Special Forces in Army. They are armed with
extremely dangerous weapons and highly trained to kill. You're only supposed
to send those people when there's a reasonable suspicions of armed resistance,
not on routine investigation of white-collar crime, just because you can.

~~~
commandar
I've seen quite a bit of debate over whether the media is mischaracterizing
what happened with the whole "SWAT-like teams" bit. Local law enforcement has
said they didn't deploy any SWAT units, and, so far as I've been able to find,
while the DoE OIG does own some shotguns[1], they don't have any real tactical
teams.

Given the way the rest of this has been reported, it's kind of my suspicion
that a bunch of investigators in "POLICE" raid jackets and a few shotguns got
turned into a "SWAT team" by reporters.

[1] [http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/03/18/why-the-dept-of-
educ...](http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/03/18/why-the-dept-of-education-
needs-shotguns.htm)

------
thesis
In my opinion if they were investigating fraud then the raid was reasonable.
The no knock warrant seems like a bit of a stretch though. What were they
going to do? Flush the money down the toilet?

If it was just over defaulted loans, then hopefully the DOE put liens and
levys where they could prior.

------
DannoHung
Why would they give the money directly to the student instead of the
educational institution?

~~~
orijing
Apparently to give to those who need it more. For example, because my parents
had a median Silicon-valley income (which was above the national median), I
did not get any financial aid, reasonable financing options, etc. My parents,
limited by the mortgage payments to the house they bought in 2007 (bad timing,
I know), had very little free cash (I had a little sister). As a result, I had
to work for my money while there were supposedly poor classmates running
around with Macbook Pros and brand new iPhones and iPads, paid for by their
financial aid. (Or rather, they didn't have to pay for living and tuition, so
every dollar they earned went into accessories).

You can tell I'm a bit bitter about this. I wonder what everyone else thinks.
I understand that education should be equal opportunity, but this is not equal
opportunity.

~~~
ohyes
Except those people are all buried in debt from student loans and their
extravagant spending.

You kind of dodged a bullet there.

~~~
orijing
Which kind of people? Those receiving financial aid, or those who aren't (like
me)?

~~~
ohyes
Those who took out loans and spent them on macbooks.

------
lists
I'm usually suspicious of state-phobia/"no big government" themes because
there's usually a host of prejudices and nasty fallback concepts undergirding
things, but as a person struggling with student loan debt (I know, I know,
unlike everyone else on the site amirite) this hits home in a big way.

But as far as policy debate goes, the university system is a trainwreck of
financial demand and is only going to get worse. Maybe Peter we need to do
other things than college, but that isn't very responsive to historically
sedimented structural inequities (I know, I know, meritocracy is best, etc). A
discussion of free schools is underway in Britain, but I feel that presents a
chicken-or-the-egg problem.

What do we do?

~~~
shareme
Its not a train wreck, is just mired in a bit of Federal-State quirk-ness of
the US system at least the public ones.

The original basis for not funding EDu in the US was due to a clash between
the class of the US congress versus returning long haired Vietnam viets and
thus they choose the loan route.

We need in the US to end the debate between Fed and State control over the
area of college education..if states want control and cannot provide full
funding than Fed should not be forced to do so..that thinking got the US with
help of banking lobbyists into making exceptions to the Uniform Commercial
Code, bankruptcy laws, etc to punish the ones in the middle(the students).

If Fed and state govs do not get their act together...it will be student
revolt through non-payment.

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jamesbkel
The article makes a decent (if rather convoluted) point. However, the
advertisements and "buy our clothing" section really push it over the edge for
me. (in case you haven't seen the site, I'm referring to the content of what
is listed above, not the fact there are ads)

Not only was it distracting, I can no longer take this article seriously.

