{"id":2148,"date":"2015-06-07T14:51:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T20:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2015-06-07T14:51:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T20:51:33","slug":"student-loans-on-that-nyt-piece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/student-loans-on-that-nyt-piece.html","title":{"rendered":"Student loans: on that NYT piece. . ."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There was a piece in the New York Times <\/a>yesterday in which the author defended his decision to default on his student loans. \u00a0It\u2019s not fair, he said:<\/p>\n

Years later [after graduation from a private college], I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn\u2019t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He writes this at the age of (presumably) 58, that is, 40 years after his first student loan, and, though he doesn\u2019t say how long ago it was that he first decided to cease paying down his debt, he asserts that was the right call for him, and should be the answer for anyone else with unpleasant debt levels. \u00a0He advises readers to get multiple credit cards before defaulting, find a \u201cstable housing situation,\u201d pay your rent on time, and \u201clive with or marry someone with good credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what happens if everyone defaults? \u00a0Only good things, he says:<\/p>\n

The collection agencies retained by the Department of Education would be exposed as the greedy vultures that they are. The government would get out of the loan-making and the loan-enforcement business. Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.\u00a0. . .\u00a0Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, you might imagine that I\u2019m skeptical of assertions that the federal government should just make college free for everyone \u2014 and you\u2019d be right.<\/p>\n

This particular individual, whose attitude toward life is encapsulated in his statement that he was unwilling to surrender his \u201cvocation\u201d in order to pay down his debt, accrued his debt at an unspecified private college. \u00a0Does he imagine that in his \u201cfree college for all\u201d world, the federal government would fund that sheltered world he lived in, with small class sizes and all the idealized elements of private colleges? \u00a0So far as I know, in no country with free tertiary education, is the system anything like this. \u00a0In Germany, of course, you have to pass the Abitur, in France, the Bac, in the UK, the A levels. \u00a0There\u2019s no such thing as going to college with a GED. \u00a0And in Germany, there are no frills in college, no hand-holding advisors, no rec centers, and the Mensa serves meals that any American student would turn their nose at. \u00a0I imagine it\u2019s pretty much the same anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Is\u00a0the \u201cfree college\u201d wing willing to give up the Residential College Experience to achieve it?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a piece in the New York Times yesterday in which the author defended his decision to default on his student loans. \u00a0It\u2019s not fair, he said: Years later [after graduation from a private college], I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. 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