
A student loan collector must halt collections - twunde
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/business/dealbook/student-loan-national-collegiate-trusts.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage
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teekert
It's mind-boggling how a nation is able to develop a system that forces its
young to spend a large part of their life paying for the salaries of bank
employees and managers, simply because they want an education. It's even more
mind-boggling that these students can then get rid of this dept easiest by
joining the system themselves, simply shuffling around money to make more
money to pay off their dept.

And then Jamie Dimon calls Bitoin a ponzi scheme... Our entire economy is a
ponzi scheme.

All of our money is created as dept, as such banks collect money on all of the
money ever created. They create nothing of value for this. Why do we accept
this?

~~~
tomohawk
Why do we accept the out of control increase in cost to get a degree? Why is
it possible to get a loan for a degree that will be highly unlikely to lead to
a career that will pay off the loan?

The schools seem to have way too much power here. If this was any other
industry, there would be more oversight and regulation.

The easy money from lending immunizes the schools from being cost conscious
because it shifts the burden to the students, who are told they'll go to
heaven if they only get a college degree.

~~~
mcherm
> Why do we accept the out of control increase in cost to get a degree?

Because that degree is valued, not for the education the student received, but
as a formal gating mechanism: those who do not obtain it (and it better be
from a "good" school) are (with a few exceptions) excluded from all
possibility of ever having "good" jobs.

In other words, our hiring practices are the root of the problem.

Even in tech (where I know from experience that skill and education are only
mildly correlated), education on the resume is still a gatekeeper and my
company's recruiting of novices comes primarily from the better college
campuses.

~~~
a1b9c14e125bd58
I don't have a degree and never had an issue finding good work in the tech
industry.

I've found there are so many people trying to get into IT that your portfolio
counts for more than your qualifications (much like with a photographer).

~~~
philh
> I've found there are so many people trying to get into IT that your
> portfolio counts for more than your qualifications

I'd expect qualifications to matter less if there are few people trying to get
into IT, since employers can less afford to miss a good candidate. If they get
a hundred applicants for each position, they'll be more inclined to use a weak
filter to throw out half of them on a first pass.

~~~
a1b9c14e125bd58
Maybe there is a glut of average candidates then? Either way I've found no
issue getting jobs - even for positions which specifically state an IT degree
as a requirement. And I'm always honest about qualifications as well.

Obviously I'm not advocating people skip university. But I think it's
important to remember that you can still compete in the job market without a
degree.

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greenyoda
" _Those borrowers had made payments after being sued over loans that were
legally uncollectable, either because the statute of limitations had passed or
because National Collegiate lacked the documentation needed to collect the
debts in court._ "

This sounds a lot like what was happening during the financial crisis a decade
ago. Lenders were selling mortgage loans to Wall Street to be bundled into
collateralized debt obligations. After those CDOs got sold a few times, people
lost track of who actually owned a particular loan. When borrowers defaulted,
it was in many cases impossible to prove who was legally entitled to collect
on the debt.

(A line in a spreadsheet that says John Doe owes you $500K is not very
convincing evidence to a judge - you need to be able to provide a document
with John Doe's signature on it.)

~~~
KGIII
My son got a letter insisting he owed money on his college loan. He never had
a loan. I paid for his education without any loans. He asked for documentation
and they stalled. I finally had my lawyer write a letter on his behalf and,
sure enough, they had made an error and were deeply sorry for our
inconvenience.

Notably, they didn't offer to cover my time, his time, and the expense of the
lawyer. I value my time more than I value money. I consider these things theft
of my time.

~~~
javajosh
Did you consider taking them to small claims court to recover your costs?

~~~
KGIII
Not really. The thought crossed my mind but I figured it'd just be more of my
time being spent. I can make more money. My time is a finite commodity. I'd
rather waste it on fun things.

~~~
joering2
Didnt you think for a minute of your precious time that you had perfect
opportunity to teach them a lesson and burn some of their money in the
process? These scumbags dont exist because we dont have laws strictly
prohibiting what they doing - they exist because only very tiny fraction of
people they tried defraud will do something about it.

~~~
KGIII
Nope.

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osrec
Student loans are becoming insane.

My own loan was initially government issued with a reasonable interest rate,
but a year after finishing uni, it was sold off to a private fund that decided
to jack up the interest rate to nearly 7%! In the UK, education used to be
free. Now kids are leaving 3rd grade universities with 50k GBP debt, a
ridiculously high interest rate and no quality job prospects. That's a lot of
pressure on young shoulders (my sibling is going through this currently, and I
can see how distressing it is).

And they wonder why young people can't get on the property ladder! The
ignorance on behalf of the government is astounding! I'm not sure I'd want my
kids to go through that, even if it means missing out on the social
experiences of university.

~~~
pjc50
The UK system has the weird and politically contingent "forgiveness at
retirement" element, which means that theoretically it has a lifetime cap and
behaves a bit like an income tax on graduates.

The catch is it's something like a 9% income tax!

The worst thing is that the three big national parties(+) all have their
fingers on this, so I'm not sure who you could rely on to fix it. And whether
it might have to come with rationing to a certain fraction of the population
being able to get free university.

Not to mention that education is a vital export industry which the Home Office
keeps trying to destroy.

(+) The third largest party by MPs is the SNP who only stand in Scotland,
where they have ruled out tuition fees

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tryingagainbro
"A random sample of nearly 400 National Collegiate loans found not a single
one had assignment paperwork documenting the chain of ownership, according to
a report they had prepared."
[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/business/dealbook/stud...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/business/dealbook/student-
loan-debt-collection.html)

Why aren't judges fining them /their lawyers? Can I sue John Doe and demand
that he pay me the money he took for his mortgage? Before filing a lawsuit,
the "I bought your loan so pay me" chain should be settled in an acceptable
way. Otherwise it's fraud.

~~~
colejohnson66
Sanctioning a lawyer isn’t as easy as people think it is. It took years to
take down the Prenda lawyers

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sgs1370
I'm obviously very old compared to the target audience. I was accepted to
Columbia and Texas A&M and chose Texas A&M because I had various scholarships
that paid for my tuition and room/board. I had some scholarships to go to
Columbia but was facing debt of ~20k/year so I choose to go to A&M instead. My
life is fine but I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who take out huge
loans. (I had to work after my freshman year and I didn't go out a lot etc.)
Not seeking sympathy for me, just saying I don't have any desire to "forgive"
the loans for anyone.

I don't know the solution but having the govt secure all loans and think about
forgiving them is not going to help the next generation. Where is the
incentive for univ to bring their costs down? Also, where is the incentive for
people to either shop for a college they can afford, or even forgo college in
favor of some other training or on the job experience?

