The risk is great – not only will students face the ruined credit score that all loan defaulters face, but they will also face the possiblity of garnished wages, and they won’t be able to save themselves via bankruptcy.  But some debtors think its worth it:

Pamela Brown, a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the New School, has taken on debt for her graduate degree, although she hopes to go into public service and take advantage of a program that forgives borrowers’ loans after 10 years.  Her loans are currently deferred because she is still enrolled in college.  But if the need arises, she is willing to default in protest, she said.

“Even if the majority says, ‘Hey, that’s not for me.  I don’t want to take a risk like that,’ there are enough people, I think, out there who feel that their situation is dire enough to take that chance in an effort to change things,” said Brown, who is one of the organizers of Occupy Student Debt.  “For me, it’s an issue of justice.”

But Occupy Student Debt is not just about helping those who sign the Pledge.  The group’s other proposals include tuition-free colleges, interest-free private loans, public access to the financial books of private and for-profit institutions, and the writing-off of all current student loan debt. 

Even if the Pledge doesn’t succeed, this is a huge triumph for student loan debtors.  Finally, the issue of student loan debt is getting some serious media play and a serious movement dedicated to fixing the system.  I can’t wait to see what will come of it.  So, what do you think?  Would you sign the Pledge?

To my knowledge, the Pledge is still in the works, but I did a little research, and found another blog post over at A Post-Academic in NYC on the topic, written the same day as mine, that provides more information.  Here are some interesting points from that post, but I’d encourage you to take a look at it yourself as well:

Here are a few things to know about the pledge:

• Signing a pledge is not legally binding. The goal is to raise the issue of education as a human right.

• People cannot default on their loans individually without serious consequences. But we have strength in numbers to change the conversation about debt.

• Many of us are on the hook for so many bazillions of dollars that we’re going to be paying until we’re dead anyway, so why not sign? It can only help us.

• We need to keep our eyes on the prize, which is federally-funded higher ed. We have to keep in mind that we are not asking for a lot. I read the other day that Bank of America has $53 trillion dollars (that’s “trillion” with a “T”) tied up in those nasty derivatives, which even the bank knows is a time bomb waiting to go off. So spending a few billion for college is like pocket change by comparison.
• The pledge would also include an option for people to sign who are not indebted but who want to support those who are. Anyone working in higher education today is implicated in the growing indebtedness of American students, for example. Parents might also want to sign.

So here you have a very prominent member of the 1 percent who flaunts that membership of the 1 percent greasing the skids for a child who’s unqualified and inexperienced.  What does that say to all these people with all of these thousands of dollars in student loans, desperately trying, they think, to get jobs to pay off their student loans?  They think the game is stacked against them.  They think that the rules are rigged, that people like them are shut out, don’t have a chance.

I feel like I’m living in bizarro world.  Even more disconcerting – I actually agree with his position on the Chelsea Clinton thing as well.

Calling the current student loan program an “absurdity,” Gingrich said he supports forcing more students to take part in work-study programs. It would be a “culture shock for the students of America to learn we actually expect them to go to class, study, get out quickly, charge as little as possible, and emerge debt free by doing the right things for four years,” he said.

Having held a few work study positions back when I was in college, I decided to check Newt’s math.  Many work study positions, including those I held, are paid at the federal minimum wage, and they also have limitations on the number of hours a student can work.  During the school year I was limited to 10 hrs per week so, for example, when I worked in my school’s foreign language lab in Spring of 1998, I made $5.15 per hour (minimum wage in that year – and for many years after) or a grand total of $51.50 per week before taxes.  Tuition at my university at that time?  Approximately $17000 per year.

But let’s pretend those pesky limits on hours hadn’t been there.  To earn my tuition, in an imaginary utopia where there were no taxes, I would have had to work 3300 hours per year, or 63 hours per week – with no time off and while going to school full-time.  And remember, this is if work study wasn’t taxed, which, of course, it is.  Yes, Newt, that seems realistic.

Now, I actually had a full-tuition scholarship which also covered my books, so, realistically, I really only needed money for food, rent, utilities and other basic necessities.  And I was allowed to work 30 hours per week during the summer.  So let’s pretend that I worked every single week of the year, 12 at 30 hours per week and 40 at 10 hours per week.  So with not a single hour off during the entire year, I would have made about $3900 before taxes.  I lived in a low-cost city so, with a roommate, my rent was $200 per month or, $2400 per year.  Both winters and summers were horrible where I lived so heating and cooling costs could be high, but for argument’s sake, let’s say utilities ran around $40 per month on average - $480.  Now, let’s say I spent about $25 per week on groceries – not just food but soap, toilet paper, the works.  $1300.  That brings me to bare minimum expenses of $4180.  Still $280 over what work study would have given me.

So, with a full-tuition scholarship, in an imaginary world full of lollipops and void of taxes, without taking off a single workable hour the entire year including Christmas and other holidays, without owning a car or having cable or a cell phone (which I didn’t actually – since it was the dark ages of the 90s), without buying a shred of new clothing, without getting a single haircut, without, in fact, so much as seeing a movie – I would still have come up $280 short.

So, please, Newt, tell me again how those students who don’t have full-tuition scholarships and who don’t live in a tax free utopia and who dare to get haircuts are supposed to get by on work study?

And just to bring it up to date, the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.  Tuition at my alma mater is now just under $25,000 per year.  So in tax free la la land, a current work study student with no other source of income would have to work 66 hours per week, every week, to cover their tuition – 3 hours more per week than they would have had to in the booming 90s.  The school’s estimated cost with food, housing, and fees is over $35,000, which brings us to about 93 hours per week.

If only such pesky matters such as sleep and, you know, classes, didn’t get in the way, everyone could pay their way through college!

1. A bedroom.  Since graduating with my MA, the only times I have ever had a bedroom have been when I lived with someone else.  I currently live alone in a studio in a shady part of town where my dog must be walked by sundown or not at all.

2. A bed.  In fact, I’m so concerned with finances at the moment that I opted to buy a half-broken futon instead of a bed when I moved into my new place because it was cheaper.  Nothing like sleeping on a lumpy “couch,” even while holding a professional position, to make one think, as per Gob from Arrested Development, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

3. Buying new clothes.  As I type, I am wearing a shirt that I purchased, I believe, in 2007.  And that seems new-ish to me.  While I have to admit I’ve made a few “splurges” at Target since then, most of my clothes are now things I’ve had for years, hand-me-downs from my older sister (yes, I still get hand-me-downs), and thrift store finds. 

4. About 3/4 of my possessions.  I moved cities recently, and though my new employer paid some of my re-location expenses, it wasn’t enough to cover movers.  Since I couldn’t afford to make up the rest of the cost myself, I sold all of my furniture, gave away many other possessions, and shipped the rest, much of which was broken in the journey.

5. Self-esteem.  I used to think it was the coolest thing in the world that I’d gone to Harvard Law School.  But the further away from that time I get while still struggling financially, the more it just makes me feel like a loser when I compare myself to other people I went to school with.  Sometimes I just feel like screaming at someone, “I’m sorry I didn’t become a corporate lawyer!”  Because, honestly, sometimes it feels like I’m being punished for it.

6. Hope.  Not trying to get all dark here, and I’m not about to throw myself over a cliff or anything, but I really miss the version of me that felt like, with hard work and talent, anything was possible.  The fact of the matter is, a person can work hard all of their life and still wind up with nothing to show for it.  At 33, I still have plenty of time left to make some kind of an impact on the world, but I have to admit that, with each passing day, I become a little less confident in my ability to do so.  While this may not seem to relate directly to student loans, I think that other people who are facing what seems like insurmountable debt may understand what I mean. 

Those are just a few of the things I’ve given up, and, considering the stories I’ve read from others, I know that I’m actually doing ok in comparison.  And that is just plain sad.  Because if I am lucky that I didn’t have to include on this list: decent food, health insurance, a roof over my head, a decent credit score, my tax return (for those who have it taken to pay off defaults), and my social security check (again, for those who have had it taken to pay off defaults) – then our country is in serious trouble.

Here is the story of Casey Zimmerman Thompson, a resident of rural Maryland who borrowed a total of $7100 in student loans in the 1980s.  Zimmerman Thompson claims that she has paid approximately $18000 towards the loans since then.  Despite that, she still owes over $9800.  That’s right, 25 years after she took out her original loans, she still owes more than she borrowed.

The reason?  Due to various economic setbacks throughout her life, including a medical condition that ended a former career and unpaid child support from her abusive ex-husband, Zimmerman Thompson defaulted on her loans several times.  And, as anyone who has ever defaulted on a student loan knows, coming back from such a setback can be nearly impossible.  From the article: