Is any subgenre of journalism more debased and alienating than the student-loan sob story? If paying for college with heavily subsidized, federally backed loans was in fact the cause of the new, universal serfdom we hear so much about, you'd think that places like The New York Times would be able to scare up highly sympathetic young adults who tug at readers' heartstrings like orphans in a Dickens novel.Instead, in stories like last week's "Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying," you get characters like 37-year-old Amanda Lynn Tully, who "graduated in 2017 with a master's degree in historic preservation from the University of Oregon, $65,000 in federal student loans and no job offers in the conservation field." Tully, reports the Times, "felt misled" and so "made a drastic decision: She moved to Prague, where she had completed an internship, and defaulted on her loans. She hasn't made a payment in over seven years."
This grown-ass woman defaulted on her student loan and fled the country because she "psychologically" couldn't pay $60/month.
I wouldn't be surprised if she was paying more than $60 a month for cell and internet service. And probably another $60 or so a month for a brand new cell phone.
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt there are 18-year-olds who don't have the financial acumen to think about the effect of long-term loans. But these sob stories always have the worst examples.
ReplyDeleteIf she doesn't renounce her U.S. citizenship, then she owes the IRS for taxes on everything she earns overseas. And renouncing her citizenship means giving up her passport
ReplyDeleteSomeone fresh out of college would not qualify for a business loan of any sizable amount. But lending 300K for an education is perfectly okay? Too bad all these graduates weren't educated on economics before they borrowed the money.
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