<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=3>This discussion is quickly descending into reductio ad absurdums, with all
<BR>sorts of leaps of logic into contentions about pedophilia and mass murder. As
<BR>someone who does believe in the importance and necessity of a concept of
<BR>justice, might I return to the original topic for a moment to try to bring
<BR>the discussion back to reality?
<BR>
<BR>There are logically two reasons why student loans are defaulted: (a) the
<BR>former student is unable to pay them, as a result of insufficient income; and
<BR>(b) the former student is able to pay them, but chooses not to do so.
<BR>
<BR>In the case of (a), a very significant cause here, which no one has yet
<BR>discussed, is so-called commercial educational institutions of the type which
<BR>advertise on low cost television stations at 1 AM in the morning -- the de
<BR>Vrys of the world -- which sucker all sort of already impoverished young
<BR>people into their institutions, with financing based entirely on federally
<BR>guaranteed loans they obtain for these students. These students almost never
<BR>graduate, much less graduate with a marketable skill, and they are left with
<BR>loans they can not afford to pay off, and nothing to show for them. If my
<BR>memory serves me correctly, studies have shown that very large portions of
<BR>student loan defaults come disproportionately from a small number of these
<BR>institutions, but very little is done about it, as these same institutions
<BR>have significant lobbying operations in Washington, DC. This is
<BR>reprehensible, both from the point of view of the individual student, who
<BR>ends up worse than s/he began, not only poor but in serious debt, and from
<BR>the point of the community, which finances those loans through taxes and is
<BR>being ripped off by these institutions.
<BR>
<BR>If these types of defaults were eliminated, we would be left with a much
<BR>smaller number of genuine defaults, where a former student either had to drop
<BR>out and was unable to find decent paying employment, which the system could
<BR>much more easily handle. As well, if options were opened for forgiving loans
<BR>in return for providing important and needed social services for a minimum
<BR>number of years -- such as teaching, or practicing law or medicine in high
<BR>poverty communities -- there would be even less reason for genuine defaults.
<BR>
<BR>There are defaults of type (b). I doubt that there are any reliable figures
<BR>on how many of these they are, if only because it would take a great deal of
<BR>effort to figure out if an individual was able to pay, but there certainly
<BR>are some cases. If I read the text and subtext of some of the arguments here
<BR>correctly, it appears that some of our LBO-Talk community think that there is
<BR>nothing wrong with an individual who can pay, not paying. This is, I hear, a
<BR>species of 'ripping off' the system, the state, the 'man' or whatever, and so
<BR>is not wrong. I disagree. In my view, it is no different than a father who
<BR>can pay child support not paying child support. It is an abdication of an
<BR>important social responsibility, and it shifts that responsibility onto other
<BR>members of the community, who will now have to pay more taxes to maintain
<BR>financing for current and future students while the system absorbs the cost
<BR>of your default, or who, as a current or future student, will have to forego
<BR>some of the financing they should receive because the system is short of
<BR>funds due to defaults.
<BR>
<BR>In my just world, all education would be public and free, financed by the
<BR>state. But education is both a public and a private good, and when the
<BR>community has financed an individual's education through taxes, that
<BR>individual has acquired a responsibility to make a corresponding contribution
<BR>back to the common good. So in my just world, having finished his/her
<BR>education, every student would then spend a period of about five years in
<BR>community service of some sort.
<BR>
<BR>In the interim, it seems to me that when the community makes a financial
<BR>contribution to an individual student's education through state financing
<BR>provided out of taxes, that student has the social responsibility, to the
<BR>best of his/her ability, to repay that contribution, ensuring that the next
<BR>generation of students have at least as good an opportunity for education as
<BR>s/he did.
<BR>
<BR>Deadbeat former students are like deadbeat fathers: parasites on the
<BR>community that seek private fulfillment and private gain at the expense of
<BR>others. There are not radical democrats or socialists, but radical
<BR>capitalists and individualists, acknowledging no good above their own selfish
<BR>interests.
<BR>
<BR>The state should punish those who can -- and do not -- repay their student
<BR>loans. It should garnish income, with a punitive add-on. Individuals who
<BR>steal from the common good should be punished.
<BR>
<BR>Leo Casey
<BR>United Federation of Teachers
<BR>260 Park Avenue South
<BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
<BR>
<BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
<BR>It never has, and it never will.
<BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
<BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
<BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
<BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
<BR><P ALIGN=CENTER>-- Frederick Douglass --</P></FONT></HTML>