Universities Hold Transcripts Hostage Over Loans

Hugh Pickens writes "Dave Lindorff writes in the LA Times that growing numbers of students are discovering their old school is actively blocking them from getting a job or going on to a higher degree by refusing to issue an official transcript. The schools won't send the transcripts to potential employers or graduate admissions office if students are in default on student loans, or in many cases, even if they just fall one or two months behind. It's no accident that they're doing this. It turns out the federal government 'encourages' them to use this draconian tactic, saying that the policy 'has resulted in numerous loan repayments.' It is a strange position for colleges to take, writes Lindorff, since the schools themselves are not owed any money — student loan funds come from private banks or the federal government, and in the case of so-called Stafford loans, schools are not on the hook in any way. They are simply acting as collection agencies, and in fact may get paid for their efforts at collection. 'It's worse than indentured servitude,' says NYU Professor Andrew Ross, who helped organize the Occupy Student Debt movement last fall. 'With indentured servitude, you had to pay in order to work, but then at least you got to work. When universities withhold these transcripts, students who have been indentured by loans are being denied even the ability to work or to finish their education so they can repay their indenture.'"

Comments

Re:And the bubble continues...

[Paracelcus]

The massive criminal enterprise that has seized power in the USofA has done so, so seamlessly that mom & pop sitting in front of the six o-clock evening news with their TV dinners and daily newspapers think that everything is just hunky-dory, cause Scott Pelly just had a story about some six year old who dialed 911 and saved his "gamd-ma" and at the pre programmed moment they both said softly "awwww", with appropriately damp eyes! The same eyes that glaze over at the story about "that new law" that's gonna let the president lock up "bad people" forever, without some pesky trial!

The end has already begun!