Reuters – Liz Weston
” Today’s college graduates need to get the message that defaulting on federal student loans is not just stupid, it is unnecessary. That message easily could get lost in the controversy following a recent New York Times opinion piece, “Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans,” in which writer Lee Siegel not only defended his decision to ignore his education debt, but urged others to join him as a way of changing the economics of paying for college. “If people groaning under the weight of student loans simply said, ‘Enough,’ then all the pieties about debt that have become absorbed into all the pieties about higher education might be brought into alignment with reality,” Siegel wrote. “Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education.” Perhaps. We now have some indication that debt strikes may work: The U.S. Department of Education expanded its forgiveness program after some former students of the Corinthian Colleges chain – which shut down all its remaining campuses in late April – publicly refused to pay their debt, saying they’d been defrauded.”(more)