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Occupy Graduation: US ‘debt generation’ in chains

Published time: May 12, 2012 08:30
Edited time: May 12, 2012 12:31
Reuters / Brian Snyder
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Hundreds of US students plan to use this summer’s graduation as a stage to protest crippling debt. With the presidential election on the horizon, policymakers are searching for a solution to the mountain of student debt which has topped $1 trillion.

­The protest movement has been baptized Occupy Graduation and is the brain-child of US ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen. He dubs the movement a way for students to silently protest the spiraling price of education, without disrupting the ceremonies of their compatriots.

In protest at rising college costs the movement asks graduands to put a sticker with the amount they owe in debt on their caps and don a symbolic ball and chain at their graduation ceremony.

At least six universities have already put in orders for the inflatable ball and chain kit including New York City, George Washington and North Carolina – and the movement looks to be gathering momentum.

Student debt is now the largest consumer debt in American society, totaling over $1 trillion with the average college attendee owing over $25,250 by the end of the course.

One in every five students is expected to default on the debt, severely damaging his or her credit rating.

“We’re already seeing a large increase, a large number of student loan defaults across the country. And that’s coming at a rate similar to when the mortgage loans started to default as well and this has a cumulative effect, it’s a downward spiral,” said Edward Needham, one of the organizers of a parallel Occupy strand – Occupy Student Debt to RT’s Marina Portnaya.

­

Forgive and forget?

With the US elections just round the corner, President Obama and republican candidate Mitt Romney have targeted student loans as a growing problem for middle-class American families.

Interest rates for federal loans, one of the major cash flow sources for US students are set to double this July unless the US government intervenes.

However, the Senate Republicans blocked a vote on Tuesday that would have ended a tax-break for the wealthy to fund lower interest rates.

President Obama signed a bill in 2010 that would see the so-called forgiveness program expanded in 2014. Under the scheme, eligible students would see their loan repayments capped at 10 percent of their income and written off after 15 years.

Together, Americans over 60 years of age still owe onwards and upwards of $38 billion in student debt and over ten percent of them are lagging behind on payments.

 “I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to pay my debt off as long as I live and so you’re creating literally a class of indentured people, it's a disadvantage basically,” said part-time teacher Mike Friedman to RT, his debt totaling $150,000.

US youth have been instilled with the idea that higher education is a gateway to stability and wealth. But growing unemployment figures and a potentially life-long debt are forcing young Americans to reevaluate their academic aspirations.

Comments (29)

Jack (unregistered) 12.06.2012 16:00

Dont pay -its going to fall anyway -sorry 1% (you made it all possible -thank you)

Pick fights you can win...hmm  99% to 1% -not good odds. Seems money has blinded the 1% to even the basics - self preservation. They forget that all the protection and security they hire are part of the 99%. I wonder for how long they will be able to trust the hired help?
Our businesses have even forgot a very basic principle – business needs paying customers to succeed. Sadly- law – special interest – austerity -debt – lobbyist – military – non of this will put money in customers hands – business is facing as much doom as the 99% -when it happens it will happen fast -our leaders have done nothing to address any issues – they made things worse.
Oddl y modern education and the increase in it -parallels the decline of our societies -hmm wonder how that could be.
Same old story – do this, or else something bad will happen -when you do it – worse than you imagined happens. (apply this to any problem)
go to school or your broke and screwed – you go to school – you end up broke and screwed worse then if you didnt go at all.
Drug war to save us all – drugs are more available because of the drug war – we have a worse situation than if we didn't bother with a drug war. So we made the fear real with our own decisions; yet we should be fearful of any alternative – heaven forbid if the corner shop distributed drugs -everyone would get stoned – isnt that what we have now essentially?
War on terrorism to protect our way of life – the way of life was destroyed to protect it – we are worse off. I guess if you fear your home burning down -you can just burn it down yourself– no more fear.
Are not all our policies and decisions made by highly educated people? Its not the ,cripple, the poor,the sick that are drawing up clever ideas and policy – look around -higher education created a great deal of the problems we face – they also seem to be to stupefied to fix their errors.
We should list all the universities that the leadership of our countries have attended - their form of education seems to just keep costing us. - lets send them a bill for all the failure they seem to keep giving us. Higher education needs to stop producing high priced stupidity – the world cant take anymore dumb

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You're just lazy (unregistered) 15.05.2012 23:48

zberg@fpcc.edu (unregistered) wrote in #7
Hello Everyone, If the student loan debt is this high that means that since no one could get a job they went back to school, which means that the unemployment rate in America is alot higher than the media really says it is. -------------Oka y, it goes like this.  Both your parents only graduated from HS, and they tell you since they were little that life would have been much better for both of them, if only they went to college.  Your dad works in a factory, and your mom works in an office.  You are a latch-key kid.
So, you work really hard in HS, and graduate with honors.  Then you work really hard in Undergrad, graduate with honors, then work really hard in grad school, graduate with high honors, but the whole time, there were never any jobs for you, and the only way your ever even could have continued in school, was to borrow, borrow, borrow, but everyone believed in the end, that college would be worth it.
So then you finish grad school, your student loans come due, there are still no jobs.  Your parents don't understand how hard college is, so they say you are lazy and not trying hard enough to find a job. They don't respect your educational efforts and throw you out of the house; but you still can't find a job; so now you live in a homeless shelter, you freeze and starve with the elements, your whole family hates you, and won't even talk to you; and all you ever did wrong was to work hard in school, and achieve these advanced degrees, but you can't find a job, have $100K+ of unpayable student loan debt, and are living in a homeless shelter together with criminals and drug addicts.who never cared about even trying.
God Bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!

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zberg@fpcc.edu (unregistered) 15.05.2012 16:08

Hello Everyone, If the student loan debt is this high that means that since no one could get a job they went back to school, which means that the unemployment rate in America is alot higher than the media really says it is.

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