Student Debt Strike in 2019?

#26

I am absolutely 100% in for MICHIGAN, please keep me updated.

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#27

My personal belief in long term following of strike debt! back to my membership in Occupy Harrisburg and I contributed ten dollars live to the rolling jubilee on the premiere day…
anyway I plan to pay off all my debt by the time I retire at age 55-70 or when I choose to retire if I live that long. My way of striking debt is to, as I have done, never borrow in the system again. My only loans have been interest free small amounts with friends since s17 as encouraged by the debt resisters operations manual and they all will be paid back by the end of the year and they all are ok with this. I choose to not borrow. The only loans I will accept ever again are either from my life insurance or for a mortgage or car. No credit card borrowing. No suckering by the banks such as Wells Fargo whom STILL just this year aggregiously gave me a fifteen dollar fine while I paid a dollar at least once every other week on my debt.
What’s important here is I am in with every minute not sleeping, at work, volunteering, or at my recovery treatment and events committed to getting started a Harrisburg, PA chapter of this meeting in person. I am willing to use my own money to do this, and if we collectively decide I should not at least 5 or 10 will be donated here as we struggle on. Even in my Christian faith I sing , ‘We are a gentle angry people on our knees. When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun oh Lord have mercy on me.’ I remain nonviolent and we must remain nonviolent or we all will be illegitimized in our voices. so…
WHAT CAN I DO?

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#28

First week in on my debt strike! :muscle:

#29

I would participate in it. I am feeling super concerned about my long-term financial health. I am a teacher and wish that there was a way to make the student loan debt go away. I know that there is a loan forgiveness program for teachers, but you can only access that, if you are already making payments, which I cannot afford to make right now.

#30

Hi everyone! Thanks for all this feedback. It seems like a lot of people are excited about a student debt strike campaign. Admins will set up some more conversations here as well as phone calls for people who want to talk about this. Just as importantly, we have asked our tech team to get to work on a campaign page template that we can use for a campaign like this. So WE ARE ON IT. More soon. Solidarity.

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#31

Hi Ed, I did file a DTR to get my loans discharged. I attended Everest online for an accounting degree and I was able to get partial discharge if I withdrew because they actually admitted that their accounting program was not up to standards. I joined the Debt Collective shortly after and was made aware of the Defense to Repayment.

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#32

I too would join in this initiative! Having student debt has forced me at times to rely on a credit card to meet my needs, resulting in significantly more debt overall. I feel strangled by it, and any string of hope that it will go away brings me tears of joy. I know others are in the hole like I am, and even deeper so for many, and it makes me angry to think of how certain folks are profiting from our struggles. If so many people are already in default now, how many of us need to strike to make an impactful effect? If we can organize and rally together, perhaps we can affect their bottom line enough to make a difference. I’ve never missed a payment, but in not doing so I have dug my hole even deeper. Let’s help each other get out of our collective pits :slight_smile:

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#33

YES YES YES I want to participate in a strike.

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#34

Those are the best words ever Denise. I am so happy to see you here in this space. Thank you for continuing the fight. And I am so glad hear your debt was discharged.

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#35

Hi, have folks seen Senator Warren’s place to cancel student debt (not all of it, but a good portion), and make college free? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elizabeth-warren-its-time-to-end-the-failed-experiment-that-caused-the-student-debt-crisis-and-cancel-borrowers-debt-2019-04-22

What are some ways we can pressure other candidates to take this position?

#36

I think having an impact on social media is a good start, for those who are not doing so yet. Share Warren’s proposal on social media in states that candidates are from or living?

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#37

Hello, I went to a for-profit in Oregon that promised a lot of facilities and programs but did not deliver. I was offered loans and told they don’t accrue interest while I’m in school when in fact they did. I was not given options for loans and told to sign in the student loan office without actually getting to research the loans. I graduated with an MFA. I now live in Los Angeles and can’t get a high enough paying job to pay the loans. I talked to a lawyer who said there’s nothing I can do. I am wondering if there is anyone on this feed who has other advice. thank you. :slight_smile:

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#39

What you need to do is go to the “Dispute your Debt” portion of this website. There you can find tools to fight this fraudulent debt. Tools.DebtCollective.org

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#40

I would definitely join this campaign

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#41

Hi. I’m very interested in organizing a student debt strike. I was part of an attempt to do so years ago that eventually turned into the rolling jubilee.

I put out a call for people to participate with a video I made for my youtube channel https://youtu.be/oZp8qvqqGV8 and found a web developer willing to work on a platform I have in mind. Basically, it would be a platform where people pledge not to pay their student debt once enough people take the pledge.

But I see a lot issues to deal with that require collaboration, both for organizing and to structure the strike effectively. How many people need to participate for it to work? That seems like the biggest one. But there are a lot more. It seem like you are doing something similar and I would love to get involved.

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#42

Hi Greg. Welcome to the Debt Collective! Thanks for this video. It’s really interesting. I’m glad you’re into the idea of a student debt strike. You should know that an idea like the one you described (where people pledge to go on strike once a certain number of others agree to do the same) was already conducted during the occupy wall street movement. @Thomas_Gokey and I were part of that group. Here are some links:

As you can see from reading these old articles, the idea was widely regarded by the media as kind of silly. Those of us who worked on it were not taken seriously. And, as you point to in your video, the technology wasn’t really there at the time to facilitate it.

Recently, though, since Sen Warren announced her plan to cancel most student debt, some reporters have started to look back more favorably on our past organizing work:

As for organizing a new student debt strike or pledge, we love the idea. Why not organize it here on this platform? We are working on it, in fact. But would love some help from this thread.

Can folks here who want to see a collective action by student debtors to demand full relief weigh in here?

-Should we make a PLEDGE, like the kind we launched in 2011, where people say they will stop paying their loans at some point in the future?

-Should we start a strike NOW and allow people who are in default to say so and to encourage others to join?

-Should we have more of a movement-building initiative where people come on board who are interested in working on a campaign but where we work out the details later?

Thanks for all your input!

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#43

thanks for the quick response.

I definitely think a pledge makes the most sense.

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#44

Yes I think we need to show the numbers of people in debt because of student loans. I think showing the enormity of it and the patterns of abuse.

Whether or not we are able to mobilize masses of people who are currently oppressed by this business model is an undertaking - but I believe we need to do something on a massive scale like a campaign to call on a national Default Event, or sit-ins at State Departments of Education (for negligence and lack of oversight).

Have demands that include rejecting solutions that offer ‘forgiveness’ - only abolition. Demand oversight committees for these Federal Programs. Demand investigations into the practices of these Private Corporations handling our Federal Loans retroactively.

I know for a fact that there have been whistle blowers within these corporations that have come forward in court. I am not sure if this link will work - or is appropriate for this thread - delete is it is not. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fugt5dw5dqm618x/AADko43Y0jRJGZ_50KB2Xv-ca?dl=0

I suppose I am trying to expose the systematic predatory practices that are hiding in plain site with impunity. And the number of people affected, with identical stories, is astronomical! There are a lot of us.
I was also working with Occupy and Strike Debt. : )

#45

I like the idea of a pledge and an official start date. I know many of us are already striking in various ways, so maybe the pledge page or splash page can have a breakdown of what a strike really means. It doesnt necessarily mean a default. Its just anything that stops the money transfer. So $0 ibr, borrower defense, forbearance, etc are all valid ways to strike. I think more people would get on board if they understood they could do it strategically without having defaults on their credit reports. I hate credit reports, but we can get more people on board if they are realizing they dont have to ruin their credit to participate.

#46

we can also maybe have original strikers make videos about the successes their striking has brought about. The Corinthian folks who have seen theirs discharged through organizing and striking would be powerful and the videos could tie in with the debt crisis at large and how those schools only existed because of how broken higher ed is.