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student loan debt

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Woman shares harrowing story of student loan debt doubling after her mom passed away

So many reforms don't address this fundamental issue.

Photo credit: Canva

This is why we need student loan reform.

College is expensive. Parents work multiple jobs, put pressure on their children to perform at the top of their class in order to earn merit scholarships, all in the hopes for college to be mostly paid in full. Inevitably many students and parents have to take out student loans in an effort to fill in the gaps left by financial aid.

In the case of one X user, Michelle Miller, her mother agreed to pay back half of Michelle’s student loans to ease the burden on the new graduate. After graduation the daughter owed approximately $30,000 and, split between the two of them, it meant they would each need to pay back $15,000.

Michelle lamented about how her mother insisted on paying back her agreed-upon portion of the student loans though the daughter offered to take over payments. When Michelle’s mother informed her that the original $15,000 turned into $40,000 after interest, Michelle decided to save money in preparation to take over payments. However, her mother refused to allow it. Miller’s mother was expected to pay $400 a month on the student loans, but this would cut into her retirement, leaving her below the poverty level.

To her mother, it was worth it to hold up her end of the bargain. Unfortunately her mother became unexpectedly ill and passed away before she was able to retire or pay back the loans. When going through her mother’s paperwork after her death, Michelle was met with a shock. The loan amount had doubled. Michelle’s mother hid that the interest rate on the loans had brought the grand total to $80k that she could never afford to pay back.

But this story is not unique. Many borrowers go into debt thinking the benefit of the degree will outweigh the burden of student loan debt but the cost of an education continues to skyrocket and the interest rate on loans makes paying it back nearly impossible. When you go to school and take out loans, you expect to be able to afford monthly payments and hope to pay it back in a timely manner, eventually freeing up income, but that’s not always the case. A lot of people find themselves in a similar situation as Michelle’s mother. They take out a dollar amount that is repayable, only to look up and see they’ve repaid the original balance but they still owe more than they originally agreed to borrow.

If stories like Michelle’s are the norm, why aren’t we doing more to regulate student loan companies? Presidential candidates like to talk about student loan forgiveness. And in a recent announcement, President Donald Trump said he planned to “immediately” transfer the country’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration, an organization that not only has zero experience handling student loans, but will also have its workforce decreased by 43%. Which is concerning, assuming it gets passed.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

And even still, changes like these don't solve the long term issue of student loan practices. The truth of the matter is that children who three months prior had to ask permission to use the bathroom are now expected to understand the long term implications of borrowing money from a company that doesn’t care that the average person can’t pay it back plus interest.

Seventeen- and 18-year olds with a dream of attending college and questionable loan practices is a perfect storm for continued crisis in the student loan arena. Until we can figure out how to better regulate the lending companies in charge of student loans, the next generation will repeat the cycle. People shouldn’t have to choose between pursuing their dreams and taking debt to the grave.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Why ITT Tech closing down is a good thing for all of us.

For almost 50 years, ITT Technical Institute has offered technical and vocational training in everything from nursing to engineering to criminal justice.  

You probably first heard of ITT Technical Institute through one of their inspirational and increasingly self-aware commercials, like this one starring two brothers who said they were the first in their entire family to earn college degrees.

It's one of the largest for-profit schools in the country, meaning that unlike a regular college university, ITT is a privately owned, publicly traded company.

Well ... it was anyway.

Recently, ITT Tech announced that it would be closing its doors for good, ceasing all classes and operations across the country.

Not to mention officially crystalizing the utopia-like vision of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" into stark reality.

Hundreds and thousands of ITT's students and alumni will be affected by the closure, a fact the school was quick to point out. Not to mention the 8,000 staff members who lost their jobs.

It's hard not to feel for ITT's students, who have just had their education ripped out from under them. When you look at the questionable practices of for-profit colleges, though, it's clear that their students, and all of us, will probably be much better off without them in the long run.

ITT's closure is the result of a long-term crackdown on for-profit colleges led by President Barack Obama.

In August 2016, the U.S. Department of Education stopped letting ITT enroll students who rely of federal aid because the school failed to meet accreditation standards. ITT, which relies heavily on that federal aid to make its money, very quickly found itself unable to operate.

It's just another example of the closures and legal issues that for-profit institutions have begun to face. As Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said, ITT's announcement should put the entire for-profit college industry "on notice" because "predatory practices, the exploitation of taxpayers and the deception of students have no place in our higher education system."

What's ol' "Gloomy-Blumey" talking about?

Here's a quick look into the dark abyss of for-profit colleges:

Some have been known to encourage their recruiters to intimidate low-income students by exploiting their pain and fear, essentially making students feel like they have to enroll if they want a better future.

Because of those predatory recruiting practices, ITT Tech schools have alarmingly low graduation rates and alarmingly high student loan default rates.

Worst of all, though? When the government restricted the ability of for-profit colleges to profit from federal loans, veteran's benefits — such as the GI Bill — remained exempt. Some schools (including ITT) found that loophole and started targeting veterans for recruitment, in one case even going as far as sending recruiters to a Wounded Warrior camp in North Carolina to talk to veterans with brain injuries.

Much like prisons, when you add the words "for profit" to the education system, things get real gross.

Again, it's hard not to feel for the students, who are completely innocent of the wrongdoings their schools are committing. Most of ITT's students came from low-income families and communities — two factors that have been proven to be a barrier to higher education. Not to mention America as a whole needs more vocational and technical schools, not fewer — something that Obama has supported for the entirety of his presidency.

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

All that said, the displaced ITT students are not without (better) options.

The U.S. Secretary of Education himself wrote an open letter to ITT students urging them to continue their education and stating that the Department of Education is committed to helping them do so.

U.S. Secretary of Education John King Jr. Photo by Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images.

Plus, ITT was never really helping low-income students in the first place. A Senate committee investigation found for-profit colleges can be up to four times more expensive than community colleges while providing significantly less opportunity for success.

Down the line, the closure of ITT could put a big chip in America's positively gargantuan student debt problem.

Students at for-profit schools often take out loans at higher rates than anywhere else and are more likely to default, leaving them with crippling debt, which means for-profit schools like ITT aren't just fueling the student debt problem, they're profiting off it.

There's a long way to go, but when for-profit schools go down, student debt might go down with it. America gets better when fewer of our students are being taken advantage of by a corrupt system disguising itself as opportunity.

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Watch these two deliver real talk on why the student loan game is rigged.

Are student loans the worst or The Worst Ever? Franchesca Ramsey and Benjamin O'Keefe break it down for us.

How do your feelings about your student loans stack up against your feelings about your college experience?

Franchesca Ramsey nails the conflicting feelings so many of us have right at the start of her latest "Decoded" video, "5 Reasons Student Loans are Bulls**t":


All GIFs from MTV News "Decoded"/YouTube.

Yeah, I am glad I learned so much at school (I discovered my love of sociology!), but the journey to earning a college degree came at a huge cost.

In this video with Benjamin O'Keefe of "The O'Keefe Brief," Franchesca and Benjamin break down how the student debt repayment struggle has become all too common.

Here are the five reasons student loans are bulls**t:

1. College in America used to be free.

Did you know that the public college system was created in 1862 so anyone could financially access higher education? Federal land-grant colleges provided education for free — or close to it — for almost 100 years. Since then, tuition has skyrocketed.

IDK about you, but this difference kinda makes me want to cry. I so wish I was born a few decades earlier. *glares at mom and dad.* All screenshots via MTV News "Decoded"/YouTube.

2. Your tuition is probably funding your administrators' luxury cars ... or yacht ... or both.

Time to take a look at what's behind the ever-increasing college price tags. (Just a hunch, but I think increasing administrator salaries while cutting student scholarship moneymight play a role here.)


3. Student loan debt is nearly impossible to shake — even if you declare bankruptcy.

There's this thing where you can claim that having to pay your loans back would cause "undue hardship" and get them cancelled. Except it's basically impossible to get approved. Just ask this woman living on $10,000 a year.


4. Lenders intentionally make student loans complicated so you struggle to pay them back.

They're like the iTunes Terms of Agreement — student loan repayment terms are long, complicated, and clearly not made for users to understand.

5. There are those pesky private universities that treat students like consumers, not scholars.

Schools are increasingly competing to get the best and the brightest. Except now they do it by making some major (and often unnecessary) facility upgrades. The result? Well, the money for that luxury dorm and lazy river has to come from somewhere ... (Hint: your wallet).


I mean, it's nice that the school has a pool and all, but ... chances are that perfecting my backstroke won't pay my bills.

Luckily, not all is lost. Student loans are a hot topic in politics today, and you can urge your government representatives to take action.

Want to hear all the bulls**t? Check out the full video below:

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