Permanent Debt as an Economic Strategy

Message from both Obama & Trump administration's DoE.

Sub-prime loans.  Let me tell you about sub-prime loans… I got one.  I got 8 actually because I went to that worthless piece of garbage for-profit not-center-of-higher-education, ITT Tech.  To hell with ITT Tech.  I went there because I squandered my opportunity at a real college and couldn't get tuition assistance.  ITT Tech got me a student loan at 22% interest.  That’s right.  A student loan at 22% interest.  And because they have quarters instead of semesters, I got that 4 times a year.  After the first quarter of straight A-s for this 2.86 high school GPA student, I was rewarded with federal financial aid as well.  I never saw a penny of it because ITT, Corinthian, AIA and others make sure those payments go straight to the bursar and into their fat bank accounts.

From J.K. Cody, a former financial aid officer at ITT Tech:

“Another interesting fact about ITT employees is that EVERY position at campus levels and on up the chain are paid on a point basis of how many students are enrolled, funded, repackaged, attending classes. One point = one student. I was paid (in [the] financial aid office) based on how many student loans I processed per year and the next year's pay depended on that number. HQ gave us numbers we had to make in order to receive a raise or even to maintain your current pay amount. If you failed to make your numbers (students) several quarters in a row, you were either fired or your pay scale was drastically lowered.”

Now, I’m not a complete idiot.  I smelled something rotten the first quarter.  I wanted to leave and talked to the staff about it.  They told me my entire loan would come due immediately if I quit.  Hell, I didn’t have 5k on hand for that, so I stuck around, afraid to become homeless and destitute if I did the right thing for my future.  I figured at least I’d have a piece of paper that was somewhat useful.  Hah! 

Screw ITT Tech.  And screw Corinthian colleges!  They’re gone now.  But the brilliant DoE pretended to help victims of Corinthian and Everest and all the rest by telling those students to transfer to other for-profit institutions that were/are actively under investigation for defrauding students and the government!!!

I don’t really like to discuss my finances.  Who does?  It’s really no one's business, but I do this to illustrate a point.  I have not been able to pay my student loans in the 5 years since I left ITT.  I got an entry level job with a Fortune 500 company before they realized ITT was a degree mill.  I didn’t get the job because of my degree, but because of my soft-skills and general knowledge of IT, which I had before I went to ITT.  I just wanted the piece of paper to validate my knowledge.  That’s the period in history we’re in now.  Go to any college and get any degree so you don’t end up working at McDonalds.  After 5 years I barely make what I made as a nursing assistant with only a certificate.  In fact my buying power is still less than it was because of inflation.  I make just shy of $34k/yr.  I am a subject matter expert.  In my experience, I have more common sense than most MBAs.  But because I couldn’t pay I had my wages garnished for $400/mo which is 15% of my income.  That’s on one of the $20,000 consolidated loans.  I’d like to do better.  I’d like to get out of garnishment.  But there’s a line waiting to garnish my wages.  Two more debt collection companies are filed in my pay record to pick up and garnish as soon as the current garnishment stops.  And you know what else?  I have to make 9-$400 payments to get out of garnishment, but for what?  So I can’t pay them when my wages are immediately garnished for another part of the same debt?  I may well die in debt to ITT without relief from the government or winning the lottery, and at this point with an oligarchic technocracy in charge, I’m not sure which is more likely.

So, what to do?  Aside from ranting at my blog and anyone who might read or listen to it, I’ve joined the ITT Tech Warriors who have banded together in solidarity with the Everest Avengers (Everest being a subsidiary of Corinthian Colleges).  It’s been a great relief for me to find a supportive group, devoid of trolls, who take action.  As the Debt Collective, the home of the Everest Avengers has stated: “If you owe the bank a thousand dollars, the bank owns you.  If you owe the bank a trillion dollars, you own the bank. Together, we own the bank.”

That’s the irony in the greed of these rent-seekers, these pigs, malicious subprime lenders filled with avarice.  The banks gave their money to the greedy for-profit schools.  The for-profit schools defrauded the government of billions of tax dollars which never even touched the fingers of the students.  They gave that money away in such a way that those who it was intended for can’t ever pay it back.  We’ve all realized it and now we’re saying “This is ludicrous.  This is pure unadultered greed and hubris.  This is financial slavery and screw them! We will not comply!”

You see, we can’t pay the debt without moving into a cardboard box.  It endangers our spouses, our children, our parents.  I am not a loan!  I am not a slave!  I will not pay for this fraudulent degree and I don’t care if I have to give up the right to say I have a degree.  You can have it back.  I don’t want it.  No one wants it!  It’s worthless!  It’s garbage like the lenders and the corporations that facilitated it and set the trap.  When you take the long view, when you look from the top down, it is a conspiracy to enslave young Americans.  It is a conspiracy to steal from the American public and keep them indebted for life.