Can't pay student loan=Loss of state licences in 19 states

[Poland-and-Lithuania]

I know this is just my own personal situation, but this honestly applies to the whole of specialization education. I'm going to Community College for 2 years, I only have to pay $2,000 to get my associates from said community college. Because my family is is a tough spot, I did apply for governmental benefits to help me afford the 2 years at community, and the next 2 years at a high-end college (Duquesne University for those who are wondering).

I want to get into education, ya'know... Become a teacher. Teach High-School level students. It's going to be difficult field to get into, there are outs such as benefits, scholarships, and community colleges which people can attend so they don't rack up such extreme debts. Granted my situation is a little different because I come from a low-income family so I have access to most government benefits, but even without these benefits 2 years at community would cost only $20,000 max.

Does this mean that students should be slammed like this for their debt? No

Does this mean students shouldn't be held accountable for their debt? No

If you want to specialize in a certain area, there are cheap and effective ways that you can get that education. If you racked up a bunch of debt because you went to a 4-year school and lived on campus? Well sorry, you're the one who will be held responsible for your choice.

[Gig em Aggies]

I know this is just my own personal situation, but this honestly applies to the whole of specialization education. I'm going to Community College for 2 years, I only have to pay $2,000 to get my associates from said community college. Because my family is is a tough spot, I did apply for governmental benefits to help me afford the 2 years at community, and the next 2 years at a high-end college (Duquesne University for those who are wondering).

I want to get into education, ya'know... Become a teacher. Teach High-School level students. It's going to be difficult field to get into, there are outs such as benefits, scholarships, and community colleges which people can attend so they don't rack up such extreme debts. Granted my situation is a little different because I come from a low-income family so I have access to most government benefits, but even without these benefits 2 years at community would cost only $20,000 max.

Does this mean that students should be slammed like this for their debt? No

Does this mean students shouldn't be held accountable for their debt? No

If you want to specialize in a certain area, there are cheap and effective ways that you can get that education. If you racked up a bunch of debt because you went to a 4-year school and lived on campus? Well sorry, you're the one who will be held responsible for your choice.

How the hell does 2years at a community college cost 20,000? It cost me roughly between 3,500-4,500 USD per semester to attend a public 4 year university

[The New California Republic]

Granted my situation is a little different because I come from a low-income family so I have access to most government benefits, but even without these benefits 2 years at community would cost only $20,000 max..

How the hell does 2years at a community college cost 20,000? It cost me roughly between 3,500-4,500 USD per semester to attend a public 4 year university

Perhaps he is including living expenses in that total, such as rent, food etc? That is the only possible thing that I can think of. It'd be a damn expensive community college if it was costing $10,000 per year...

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I know this is just my own personal situation, but this honestly applies to the whole of specialization education. I'm going to Community College for 2 years, I only have to pay $2,000 to get my associates from said community college. Because my family is is a tough spot, I did apply for governmental benefits to help me afford the 2 years at community, and the next 2 years at a high-end college (Duquesne University for those who are wondering).

I want to get into education, ya'know... Become a teacher. Teach High-School level students. It's going to be difficult field to get into, there are outs such as benefits, scholarships, and community colleges which people can attend so they don't rack up such extreme debts. Granted my situation is a little different because I come from a low-income family so I have access to most government benefits, but even without these benefits 2 years at community would cost only $20,000 max.

Does this mean that students should be slammed like this for their debt? No

Does this mean students shouldn't be held accountable for their debt? No

If you want to specialize in a certain area, there are cheap and effective ways that you can get that education. If you racked up a bunch of debt because you went to a 4-year school and lived on campus? Well sorry, you're the one who will be held responsible for your choice.

How the hell does 2years at a community college cost 20,000? It cost me roughly between 3,500-4,500 USD per semester to attend a public 4 year university

He's probably lumping a lot of costs in.

I know over here I have to pay 1800 dollars as a full time student in community college per year, so around 900 per semester for 12 hours.

The most expensive way to attend community college is arriving out of state, which over here is about 5,200 dollars a year. I still don't know why the hell would you move out of state to attend a shitty community college, but there you go.

[Liriena]

The fact that student loans are a thing in the first place is still absurd in and of itself. The fact that some states will deal with such problems by making it even harder for people to pay back is just the pinacle of malice posing as policy.

Bring me my guillotine!

[Poland-and-Lithuania]

I know this is just my own personal situation, but this honestly applies to the whole of specialization education. I'm going to Community College for 2 years, I only have to pay $2,000 to get my associates from said community college. Because my family is is a tough spot, I did apply for governmental benefits to help me afford the 2 years at community, and the next 2 years at a high-end college (Duquesne University for those who are wondering).

I want to get into education, ya'know... Become a teacher. Teach High-School level students. It's going to be difficult field to get into, there are outs such as benefits, scholarships, and community colleges which people can attend so they don't rack up such extreme debts. Granted my situation is a little different because I come from a low-income family so I have access to most government benefits, but even without these benefits 2 years at community would cost only $20,000 max.

Does this mean that students should be slammed like this for their debt? No

Does this mean students shouldn't be held accountable for their debt? No

If you want to specialize in a certain area, there are cheap and effective ways that you can get that education. If you racked up a bunch of debt because you went to a 4-year school and lived on campus? Well sorry, you're the one who will be held responsible for your choice.

How the hell does 2years at a community college cost 20,000? It cost me roughly between 3,500-4,500 USD per semester to attend a public 4 year university

That was my fault I was looking at the information incorrectly, the actual price is around 6,000 a year. So 2 years would be around* 12,000, but there is no reason to pay the full price because the college offers plenty of programs/scholarships which can lower the tuition.

The fact that student loans are a thing in the first place is still absurd in and of itself. The fact that some states will deal with such problems by making it even harder for people to pay back is just the pinacle of malice posing as policy.

Bring me my guillotine!

Part of me agrees, part of me disagrees. As dumb as I think it is to pay for education, most of the time it's specific specializations that require the most outta your pocket. If you want to specialize in a certain field, sometimes there are going to be costs of not only time but money. Most of the time it just depends on the field you want to join.

[Oil exporting People]

However, it almost sounds like this is a gateway argument to FREE COLLEGE FOR ALL, so I'm calling bullshit there- not everyone can be (or is smart enough to be) a doctor or engineer.

Nevermind the fact that we can't even pay for that plan.

[New Raffica]

The USA is a really weird place and I'm glad I don't live there.

[Narland]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/19/when-unpaid-student-loan-bills-mean-you-can-no-longer-work.html

When Unpaid Student Loan Bills Mean You Can No Longer Work
As debt levels rise, creditors are taking increasingly tough actions to chase people who fall behind on student loans.
In 19 states, government agencies can seize state-issued professional licenses from residents who default on their educational debts.
South Dakota suspends driver's licenses, making it nearly impossible for people to get to work.

Fall behind on your student loan payments, lose your job.

Few people realize that the loans they take out to pay for their education could eventually derail their careers. But in 19 states, government agencies can seize state-issued professional licenses from residents who default on their educational debts. Another state, South Dakota, suspends driver's licenses, making it nearly impossible for people to get to work.

As debt levels rise, creditors are taking increasingly tough actions to chase people who fall behind on student loans. Going after professional licenses stands out as especially punitive.

Firefighters, nurses, teachers, lawyers, massage therapists, barbers, psychologists and real estate brokers have all had their credentials suspended or revoked.

Determining the number of people who have lost their licenses is impossible because many state agencies and licensing boards don't track the information. Public records requests by The New York Times identified at least 8,700 cases in which licenses were taken away or put at risk of suspension in recent years, although that tally almost certainly understates the true number.

More from The New York Times:
Behind the lucrative assembly line of student debt lawsuits
A student loan nightmare: The teacher in the wrong payment plan
6 tips for avoiding the worst student loan repayment traps

Shannon Otto, who lives in Nashville, can pinpoint the moment that she realized she wanted to be a nurse. She was 16, shadowing her aunt who worked in an emergency room. She gaped as a doctor used a hand crank to drill a hole into a patient's skull. She wanted to be part of the action.

It took years of school and thousands of dollars of loans, but she eventually landed her dream job, in Tennessee, a state facing a shortage of nurses.

Then, after working for more than a decade, she started having epileptic seizures. They arrived without warning, in terrifying gusts. She couldn't care for herself, let alone anyone else. Unable to work, she defaulted on her student loans.

Ms. Otto eventually got her seizures under control, and prepared to go back to work and resume payments on her debt. But Tennessee's Board of Nursing suspended her license after she defaulted. To get the license back, she said, she would have to pay more than $1,500. She couldn't.

"I absolutely loved my job, and it seems unbelievable that I can't do it anymore," Ms. Otto said.

With student debt levels soaring — the loans are now the largest source of household debt outside of mortgages — so are defaults. Lenders have always pursued delinquent borrowers: by filing lawsuits, garnishing their wages, putting liens on their property and seizing tax refunds. Blocking licenses is a more aggressive weapon, and states are using it on behalf of themselves and the federal government.

Proponents of the little-known state licensing laws say they are in taxpayers' interest. Many student loans are backed by guarantees by the state or federal government, which foot the bills if borrowers default. Faced with losing their licenses, the reasoning goes, debtors will find the money.

But critics from both parties say the laws shove some borrowers off a financial cliff.

Tennessee is one of the most aggressive states at revoking licenses, the records show. From 2012 to 2017, officials reported more than 5,400 people to professional licensing agencies. Many — nobody knows how many — lost their licenses. Some, like Ms. Otto, lost their careers.

"It's an attention-getter," said Peter Abernathy, chief aid and compliance officer for the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation, a state-run commission that is responsible for enforcing the law. "They made a promise to the federal government that they would repay these funds. This is the last resort to get them back into payment."

In Louisiana, the nursing board notified 87 nurses last year that their student loans were in default and that their licenses would not be renewed until they became current on their payments.

Eighty-four paid their debts. The three who did not are now unable to work in the field, according to a report published by the nursing board.

"It's like shooting yourself in the foot, to take away the only way for these people to get back on track," said Daniel Zolnikov, a Republican state representative in Montana.

People who don't pay their loans back are punished "with credit scores dropping, being traced by collection agencies, just having liens," he said. "The free market has a solution to this already. What is the state doing with this hammer?"

In 2015, Mr. Zolnikov co-sponsored a bill with Representative Moffie Funk, a Democrat, that stopped Montana from revoking licenses for people with unpaid student debt — a rare instance of bipartisanship.

The government's interest in compelling student borrowers to pay back their debts has its roots in a policy adopted more than 50 years ago.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act, which created financial aid programs for college-bound students. To entice banks to make student loans, the government offered them insurance: If a borrower defaulted, it would step in and pick up the tab. The federal government relied on a network of state agencies to administer the program and pursue delinquent borrowers. (Since 2010, the federal government has directly funded all student loans, instead of relying on banks.)

By the late 1980s, the government's losses climbed past $1 billion a year, and state agencies started experimenting with aggressive collection tactics. Some states garnished wages. Others put liens on borrowers' cars and houses. Texas and Illinois stopped renewing professional licenses of those with unresolved debts.

The federal Department of Education urged other states to act similarly. "Deny professional licenses to defaulters until they take steps to repayment," the department urged in 1990.

Two years ago, South Dakota ordered officials to withhold various licenses from people who owe the state money. Nearly 1,000 residents are barred from holding driver's licenses because of debts owed to state universities, and 1,500 people are prohibited from getting hunting, fishing and camping permits.

"It's been quite successful," said Nathan Sanderson, the director of policy and operations for Gov. Dennis Daugaard. The state's debt collection center — which pursues various debts, including overdue taxes and fines — has brought in $3.3 million since it opened last year. Much of that has flowed back to strapped towns and counties.

But Jeff Barth, a commissioner in South Dakota's Minnehaha County, said that the laws were shortsighted and that it was "better to have people gainfully employed."

In a state with little public transit, people who lose their driver's licenses often can't get to work.

"I don't like people skipping out on their debts," Mr. Barth said, "but the state is taking a pound of flesh."

Mr. Sanderson countered that people did not have to pay off their debt to regain their licenses — entering into a payment plan was enough.

But those payment plans can be beyond some borrowers' means.

Tabitha McArdle earned $48,000 when she started out as a teacher in Houston. A single mother, she couldn't keep up with her monthly $800 student loan payments. In March, the Texas Education Agency put her on a list of 390 teachers whose certifications cannot be renewed until they make steady payments. She now has no license.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who has worked to overturn these laws, called them "tantamount to modern-day debtors' prison."

States differ in their rules and enforcement mechanisms. Some, like Tennessee, carefully track how many borrowers are affected, but others do not keep even informal tallies.

In Kentucky, the Higher Education Assistance Authority is responsible for notifying licensing boards when borrowers default. The agency has no master list of how many people it has reported, according to Melissa F. Justice, a lawyer for the agency.

But when the agency sends out default notifications, licensing boards take action. A public records request to the state's nursing board revealed that the licenses of at least 308 nurses in Kentucky had been revoked or flagged for review.

In some states, the laws are unused. Hawaii has a broad statute, enacted in 2002, that allows it to suspend vocational licenses if the borrower defaults on a student loan. But the state's licensing board has never done so, said William Nhieu, a spokesman for Hawaii's Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, because no state or federal student loan agencies have given it the names of delinquent borrowers.

Officials from Alaska, Iowa, Massachusetts and Washington also said their laws were not being used. Oklahoma and New Jersey eliminated or defanged their laws last year, with bipartisan support.

But in places where the laws remain active, they haunt people struggling to pay back loans.

Debra Curry, a nurse in Georgia, fell behind on her student loan payments when she took a decade off from work to raise her six children. In 2015, after two years back on the job, she received a letter saying that her nursing license would be suspended unless she contacted the state to set up a payment plan.

Ms. Curry, 58, responded to the notice immediately, but state officials terminated her license anyway — a mistake, she was told. It took a week to get it reinstated.

"It was traumatic," Ms. Curry said. She now pays about $1,500 each month to her creditors, nearly half her paycheck. She said she worried that her debt would again threaten her ability to work.

"I really do want to pay the loans back," she said. "How do you think I'm going to be able to pay it back if I don't have a job?"

MY OPPINION!
This is competely rediculious, if you can't pay off the loans removing your ability to drive means you will have a harder time working you will make less money and be in debt longer. This is the slippery slope back to debtors prisions.

Some of this is commons sense, like:
Don't go into debt beyond your means to soon repay (especially if flipping burgers is an all too real outcome of an obtusely unmarketable studies major).

Don't sign fool-hardy contracts just to go to a college or university (or better yet go to a college or university where one can pay their way through with a job on the side).

Don't live in a state that bungles the right to pursuits of happiness with innumerable effete licensures, gross over-regulation, and vapid certifications.

https://www.freedominthe50states.org/

[Ethel mermania]

Aside from the othe issues involved, You would think garnishing the wages earned would be a better solution for the state to get its money.

[Narland]

Aside from the othe issues involved, You would think garnishing the wages earned would be a better solution for the state to get its money.

No, predatory lending practices by fraud and persuasive coercion are and ought to be declared null and void. I think that garnishing wages for crimes is valid, but not violation of fiduciary contract due to fraud of the principal party based on empty promises by higher education institution racketeers to inexperienced youth. It ought to have been illegal from the start to set up a system of education wherein one must go into debt to a 3rd party principal for an education that cannot pay for itself within a short term of menial wage being hindered from that goal (or worse prohibited by law from engagement without their certification).

The unethical state of student loans (due to government interference of the marketplace), book price gouging (again due to government meddling with imaginary intellectual property statues), and noncompetitive monopolies by brute force law (again unrestrained government interference with the right of freedoms of conscience, association, and expression) has created an untenable situation where the right of finding happiness in pursuit of one's place in the world through a trade, vocation, occupation or profession in reality and academia's failure to correspond to that reality is problematic. Perhaps the future of a reformed an honest academia will lie with the internet and affordable education through less expensive but equally erudite online schools, academies, and colleges.

[Ethel mermania]

Aside from the othe issues involved, You would think garnishing the wages earned would be a better solution for the state to get its money.

No, predatory lending practices by fraud and persuasive coercion are and ought to be declared null and void. I think that garnishing wages for crimes is valid, but not violation of fiduciary contract due to fraud of the principal party based on empty promises by higher education institution racketeers to inexperienced youth. It ought to have been illegal from the start to set up a system of education wherein one must go into debt to a 3rd party principal for an education that cannot pay for itself within a short term of menial wage being hindered from that goal (or worse prohibited by law from engagement without their certification).

The unethical state of student loans (due to government interference of the marketplace), book price gouging (again due to government meddling with imaginary intellectual property statues), and noncompetitive monopolies by brute force law (again unrestrained government interference with the right of freedoms of conscience, association, and expression) has created an untenable situation where the right of finding happiness in pursuit of one's place in the world through a trade, vocation, occupation or profession in reality and academia's failure to correspond to that reality is problematic. Perhaps the future of a reformed an honest academia will lie with the internet and affordable education through less expensive but equally erudite online schools, academies, and colleges.

In the American system if you do not pay creditors, they can have your wages garnished. Making this a civil action not criminal. Also making garnishment a valid response to failure to pay a student or any other loan.

Whether student loaNS ar3 ethical in the first place is a different conversation.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

It's ridiculous that public universities charge so much for tuition in the first place. A summer job should be enough to pay the student's share of two subsequent academic terms, period. The lion's share of the benefit to an educated public is society's. If you don't believe what they're teaching is of value, either change it or shut them down. Don't just leave students in the red like this.

EDIT: Also of note is that the university system's where we get our K-12 teachers. We expect K-12 students to pay for school lunches and the like, but not tuition. Only the ones who'll teach them are expected to pay tuition to do so, and we don't carve out an exception for education majors. So what's the idea here, to prevent the poor from influencing kids?

[The Liberated Territories]

This is not surprisingly when the government essentially made university a requirement by devaluing it. Whereas other countries get by through utilizing trade schools as an alternative path, only the US is deadset on this American Dream-esque notion that everyone will go to university and get a degree, regardless of the job, and that's just silly. I say diversify the market, bring back the trade skills, and make kids interested in different professions than what is currently being offered.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

This is not surprisingly when the government essentially made university a requirement by devaluing it. Whereas other countries get by through utilizing trade schools as an alternative path, only the US is deadset on this American Dream-esque notion that everyone will go to university and get a degree, regardless of the job, and that's just silly. I say diversify the market, bring back the trade skills, and make kids interested in different professions than what is currently being offered.

Engineering could make the skilled trades obsolete if we had enough of it.

[The Black Forrest]

Aside from the othe issues involved, You would think garnishing the wages earned would be a better solution for the state to get its money.

Garnishing? Oh hell no. That would be the first response to any delinquency.

[The Black Forrest]

This is not surprisingly when the government essentially made university a requirement by devaluing it. Whereas other countries get by through utilizing trade schools as an alternative path, only the US is deadset on this American Dream-esque notion that everyone will go to university and get a degree, regardless of the job, and that's just silly. I say diversify the market, bring back the trade skills, and make kids interested in different professions than what is currently being offered.

Trade schools will only handle so many and will be made obsolete in time.

[95X]

(Oh, this thread again!)

I can speak from experience that student loan entrance counseling specifically states that taking out the loans are voluntary and that if one defaults they may be denied a professional license. This entrance counseling was delivered by a web page and my guess is people click through it without reading it. (Also the Master Promissory Note, which I also read, had a clause that stated the debtor agreed that they read the paperwork, even if they didn't.)

I believe the issue in the poll was that South Dakota was taking it a step further by seizing drivers licenses and South Dakota doesn't have much public transportation, making such people virtually unemployable. Well since the state says they have the right to do so, then if people in that state want change, in the next election voters in that state should vote for candidates that would either change state laws and/or increase public transportation.

Garnishing? Oh hell no. That would be the first response to any delinquency.

Actually, that's one of the very last things a creditor will do to get paid, because they have to contact the debtor's employer and because of the negative publicity they receive. Even if it's just 'word of mouth' bad publicity.

[Oil exporting People]

Trade schools will only handle so many and will be made obsolete in time.

The same can be said for colleges and no.

[Nakena]

This is not surprisingly when the government essentially made university a requirement by devaluing it. Whereas other countries get by through utilizing trade schools as an alternative path, only the US is deadset on this American Dream-esque notion that everyone will go to university and get a degree, regardless of the job, and that's just silly. I say diversify the market, bring back the trade skills, and make kids interested in different professions than what is currently being offered.

Truer words were never spoken.

Universities are overrated and the idea that everyone should have an University degree is absurd.

[Vassenor]

If you think everyone having access to degrees devalues them then it seems like you only see a university education as a class barrier.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

If you think everyone having access to degrees devalues them then it seems like you only see a university education as a class barrier.

The problem is that that is what happens in a market where degrees are valued. It devalues the degrees because your degree is now suddenly not as special. It doesn't show a specialty of skills. It just shows a general education in something.

Specialists have always had a lot more value in society because they have specialized in something. If everyone is a specialist then being a specialist is not a big deal since everyone can be one.

If everyone can get a degree then a degree doesn't put you ahead of the pack, it becomes an expectation for you to have one, which puts more pressure to pick the right, most profitable degree as a result even when you might hate it. It doesn't become about the love of the degree anymore, it becomes about how marketable it is.

[Ethel mermania]

This is not surprisingly when the government essentially made university a requirement by devaluing it. Whereas other countries get by through utilizing trade schools as an alternative path, only the US is deadset on this American Dream-esque notion that everyone will go to university and get a degree, regardless of the job, and that's just silly. I say diversify the market, bring back the trade skills, and make kids interested in different professions than what is currently being offered.

Engineering could make the skilled trades obsolete if we had enough of it.

Dude, you can't outsource plumbing. Electrical engineers will be out of work before electricans. Though tbh, I don't see either going away for a while.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Engineering could make the skilled trades obsolete if we had enough of it.

Dude, you can't outsource plumbing. Electrical engineers will be out of work before electricans. Though tbh, I don't see either going away for a while.

What if we had robot plumbers? Or robot electricians?

We'll get there a lot faster with more engineers.

[Ethel mermania]

Dude, you can't outsource plumbing. Electrical engineers will be out of work before electricans. Though tbh, I don't see either going away for a while.

What if we had robot plumbers? Or robot electricians?

We'll get there a lot faster with more engineers.

based on the tasks required i think we will have robot engineers before robot plumbers. field conditions dominate in plumbing and electrical work.