Strike Debt's Rolling Jubilee Erases $4,000,000 in Student Loan Debt - For $100,000!

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 17, 2014 · 8:07 AM PDT

2014/09/17 · 08:07

Almost two years ago the Rolling Jubilee, a project of Strike Debt (an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street), announced an ambitious stunt - raise $50,000 and abolish $1,000,000 in medical debt. They would do this by purchasing the debt on the shady national debt exchange markets - where calculating investors trade pain and suffering back and forth - and effectively burn the IOUs they would obtain.

Turns out they raised over $700,000 and, in multiple stages, have managed to wipe out almost $15,000,000 in medical debts!

With most of the still remaining money, the Rolling Jubilee folks turned their eye to Student Loan Debt and, today, September 17th, the third anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, announced that they had negotiated the purchase of $4,000,000 in such debt, at a cost of $100,000 (that's two point five cents on the dollar!). From part of their announcement:

The debt purchased by the Rolling Jubilee - almost $4 million worth - belongs to the most extorted students we know of. They were enrolled in Everest College, a predatory for-profit institution that is part of the Corinthian College network (CCI). Now in its death throes, Corinthian is trying to sell off its campuses, along with its own high-interest student loans, so that the swindling can continue under new management. We chose Everest because it is the most blatant con job on the higher ed landscape. But the problems go far beyond the sleazy for-profit sector. It’s time for all student debtors to get relief from their crushing burden. That’s why this Rolling Jubilee debt buy (one of the last we will make as we get close to spending all of our funds) is also the beginning of the Debt Collective, a long-term organizing project.

And, just as with the medical debt, those students fortunate enough to have had their debt purchased by the Rolling Jubilee are waking up to find that those loans discharged. (RJ had no say in exactly whose loans are included in the buys, which are packaged up and sold in lots with only statistical information about the pool of debtors revealed before the purchase is consumated)

Most student debt is owned by the Federal government (which is making vast profits off of it, last year to the tune of $41 billion, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has been railing against) and it is not for sale, nor can it be discharged in bankruptcy. (In fact impoverished seniors are even having their Social Security garnished to pay off ancient student loans)

There is some private student debt out there, as evidenced by the Rolling Jubilee's debt buy, but it is hard to deal in. The failure of the Corinthian College network, as horrible as it has already been and will continue to be for students, with the consequent willingness of private debt holders to unload Corinthian student debt they hold, gave the Rolling Jubiliee the opportunity to spotlight the incredible debts college students across this country are amassing, and to magnify the existing calls for student debt relief.

Strike Debt advocates for the forgiveness of student debt, because education should be free, and it demands free public college education, which would cost little more than our current patchwork, Rube-Goldberg system of student aid.

Strke Debt is also calling for a national Debt Collective to help coordinate mass action, if necessary debt strikes, to advocate for relief.

As part of our work in Strike Debt, we launched the Rolling Jubilee to promote public education about the injustice of requiring public goods, such as education and healthcare, to be personally debt-financed... Debt collectives, effectively debtors’ unions, are the next stage. Only by organizing together, through the pursuit of collective bargaining and debt strikes, can debtors build power against the creditor class...
In the last few months, we have worked closely with Everest students, offering IT and media support, along with legal advice. This is how the Debt Collective begins- as a resource that debtors can use to self-organize... Debtors with financial obligations in common will be able to communicate among themselves and take effective action to defend their interests. Over time, the Debt Collective will become a political force, with a voice that can challenge and dismantle the debt-money system of the creditocracy. Most student loans take decades to pay back, the Debt Collective is here for the long haul. Join us.

You are not a loan. Visit the Debt Collective (debtcollective.org).

Read the entire announcement on the Strike Debt web site.

Read about help for Corinthian students.

Visit the Debt Collective.

Read some diaries about the original Rolling Jubilee:

strikedebt photo burning-pile-of-debt.jpg

10:02 AM PT: The CFPB's complaint against Corinthian: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/...

A summary of the allegations:

http://chronicle.com/...

Hat tip to Snyperkitty from the comments.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Strike Debt's Rolling Jubilee Erases $4,000,000 in Student Loan Debt - For $100,000!

Comments are closed on this story.