The Student Loan Scam The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History and How We Can Fight Back

Gone are the days where the typical high school graduate could put him or herself through university for a few thousand dollars in student loan debt at most. Today, the average undergraduate student borrower leaves school with more than $20,000 in student loans and the average graduate borrower accrues $42,000 in debt. In the past 20 years, college tuition has increased at more than double the rate of inflation. With nearly $40 billion in defaulted student loans, this crisis is growing to epic proportions. Concurrently, student loans have become the most profitable, uncompetitive, oppressive, and predatory type of debt of any in the nation's history, due to federal legislation since the mid 90's that took away all standard consumer protections from student loans, and allowed for massive penalties and draconian wealth extraction mechanisms to collect this inflated debt. Student Loan Scam will shine a bright light on this problem, expose the organizations and individuals who caused it to happen, and share the stories of people whose lives have been destroyed as a result. It will also suggest concrete and pragmatic solutions and argue that standard consumer protections be returned to student loans.

Alan Michael Collinge, founder of StudentLoanJustice.org, has appeared on 60 Minutes, written for the Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, and is regularly quoted in the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, and Washington Post about the student-loan industry. With engineering degrees from the University of Southern California, Collinge lives in University Place, Washington.