Get on the bus to stop student debt
By Chris Hicks, National Student Labor Action Project Coordinator
A month ago I was standing outside of Sallie Mae’s DC office with over three hundred students from all over the country asking for a meeting with Sallie Mae CEO Albert Lord, and Sallie Mae responded by calling the police and having 36 of my friends arrested. But we are the 99%, and we can’t back down – too much is on the line. That is why we are going to Newark, Delaware on May 24th for the Sallie Mae Shareholder meeting and we need you there!
When we went to their DC offices, we wanted to ask them to forgive student debt, to stop lobbying against our interests, and to pay their fair share of taxes. They locked us out of the building and wouldn’t leave their offices. That is why students and graduates alike have said it’s time to take it to their shareholder meeting and confront corporate power! It’s a dire moment for anyone looking at getting a college degree: the average student graduates with $25,000 in student loan debt and one in two college graduates are jobless or underemployed. We need an economy that works for the 99% – not for the 1% and the corporations they control.
Join us in telling Albert Lord… we won’t let an entire generation of students be sacrificed to build his bank account.
Here is what you can do right now:
- Join us in Newark! Buses and carpools will be leaving from Orlando, Boston, District of Columbia, and more cities! Contact Chris Hicks for more information.
- Let shareholders know where you stand by signing this petition!
- Donate to help a student get on a bus – even if you can’t make it, you can help working class students from around the country have their voices heard.
It’s time to let the 1% hear us loud and clear – this is the 99% Spring and we will win.
[…] Get on the bus to stop student debt | Student Labor Action Project Join us in telling Albert Lord… we won’t let an entire generation of students be sacrificed to build his bank account. Here is what you can do right now: When we went to their DC offices, we wanted to ask them to forgive student debt, to stop lobbying against our interests, and to pay their fair share of taxes. They locked us out of the building and wouldn’t leave their offices. That is why students and graduates alike have said it’s time to take it to their shareholder meeting and confront corporate power! It’s a dire moment for anyone looking at getting a college degree: the average student graduates with $25,000 in student loan debt and one in two college graduates are jobless or underemployed. […]
I am running with the most aggressive Student Loan Reform platform of any candidate and certainly more aggressive than any incumbent.
I don’t see the possibility of national complete loan forgiveness. I personally have $84,000 in student loans myself and I’m 52 years old. I am for capping the rate for ALL loans at 3%, getting rid of penalties such as when people go from full-time to half-time, and amending 10 pages of the Higher Education Act of 1965. I also think we need to fund the first year of junior college in the US.
My web site is http://www.norenforsenate.com
If you think that Kirsten Gillibrand will be as aggressive on student loan reform as me, then you’re really dreaming. I am Ground Zero for student loan reform, period.
I hope you will volunteer to help me get signatures starting July 10th.
My email and Volunteer tab is in my web site.
Sincerely,
Scott Noren DDS
Ithaca, NY
No Frack!
If you can’t afford to pay out of pocket, don’t go to college. Simple.
You people are likely critiquing government spending, too, aren’t you? Someone should make a meme: Complains about debt crises…takes out massive student loan, auto loan, mortgage with variable interest rate in time of GLOBAL economic instability.
Quit bitching, get a job (or two) beneath you and your poorly chosen major, and pay back your debt like everyone else; or did you want a bailout?
Thank you, captain hindsight! And just what major would you recommend, oh brilliant one? Because last I checked, the almighty M.D. and J.D. degrees, math, sciences and engineering professions were all struggling just as much as the liberal arts majors. Then again, if they had your wisdom, they wouldn’t be in this position. We should all just quit doing what we’re doing and listen to you!!
In Philadelphia, Figth for Philly has been engaging college students around student debt and budget issues; which is why we want provide students with transportation to this event. Please email me at paola@fightforphilly.org to sign up or get more details.
@ Graduate: It is difficult to being arguing with your nonsense because it is hard to chose which part is more inaccurate. First off, student debt is a publicly-subsidized private enterprise. It is the worst of both systems: it is socialism for the lenders. The lenders get the insurance from the state if people default, and the borrowers just get left to the free market. Even more, the borrowers are not allowed to shop for which lenders to choose from. I was presented with government loans or bust. So I am to assume you are against the system of government inferring in the market if you are so critical of student borrowers? I hope you would be at least this ideologically consistent.
Your critique of major’s people pick is the classic straw man argument of someone who doesn’t understand the economic crisis, education, or the way life works. For years, people could go into many different professional fields not dependent on their major in college. The problem is not poorly picked majors: it is lack of jobs! People can’t pay back loans if there are no jobs! I have friends with economics majors who have no jobs and women studies degrees with jobs (fact: they aren’t teaching women’s studies, either).
I am not struggling with student debt (yet – I haven’t finished graduate school). My parents, college, and myself were able to keep my undergraduate school loans and bills moderate. However, I can honestly say I (at 18 years of age) had no idea what I was signing on to. Everyone was pushing me to go to school. I wasn’t old enough to drink alcohol, but I was “wise” enough to sign loan documents that signed me up for a lifetime of debt if I couldn’t pay them back.
The real point (which you never address) is the interest rates and inability to for people to go bankrupt on their loans. People can declare bankruptcy on gambling debts! So people are stuck paying ridiculously high interest rates (with no real market – I wasn’t given options on which lenders to take out). Often people can pay back the principal loan, it is the insane and usury interest rates that destroy people.
It is so obvious the system isn’t working – so many people are defaulting or not actually making significant money on their investments (including wages lost in the labor market by being in school) – that criticizing the students in the worst of “blaming the victim.”