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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.'"
Perhaps people will actually start paying what they owe instead of getting a new iphone or whateve
This is the kind of thing that happens when you allow the government to get in the middle.
And what kind of thing would that be? Businesses demanding payment for services rendered? Or gubmint demanding payment of money owed? Try not paying your taxes Mr Teat Partier, and see what happens.
"If the government REALLY "got in the middle", this wouldn't be a problem in the first place since public colleges and universities would be dirt cheap or even free, as they are in most other OECD countries."
Because buildings are free. Because teachers work for free. Because libraries are free...
It's really nice these "OCED countries" can afford such things -- since most of them have their military security supplemented by US tax dollars either directly, or indirectly.
The American experiment with socialism and central planning has been a demonstrable failure, at least for the average citizen. We've created a 'socialist' central government which seizes vast amounts of our national wealth and steadily assumes control over more and more aspects of our personal lives. The result has been a disaster for the vast majority of Americans. Only the central planners themselves and their elite comrades have thrived. The evidence of 'stupidity' rests in the fact that millions of Americans think that we should grant additional wealth and power to this government.