Occupy Student Loan image hat tip: Blog.Juggle.com |
[Excerpt] " ... More than ten
years ago, Pedro Rodriguez, a talented keyboard musician, came from his
colonial homeland of Puerto Rico to go to Temple University. From a
low-income family, he depended heavily on student loans to finance his
four-year undergraduate study. Graduating summa cum laude with a
bachelor’s of music, he went on to earn a master’s degree in music from
Temple and then was hired for three years to teach there as an adjunct.
By the end of college, he was $62,000 in debt but was making payments
regularly until Temple laid him off, allegedly because of budget cuts.
That’s when his problems began. (Pedro Rodriguez is a pseudonym to
protect his identity.)
Unable to find a
job as a music teacher in the current economic crisis, he eventually
went into default on his loans, which included Stafford, Perkins and
private bank loans. Then this year, he decided to go on to earn a PhD,
which would make it possible for him to get hired in his field. He
applied to a top-rated university in the Northeast, but when it was time
to send his school transcripts, Temple froze him out. “They said as
long as I was in default on my loans, they would not issue a
transcript!” says Rodriguez.
A spokesman from
Temple confirms that it is school policy to withhold official
transcripts from graduates who are in default on their student loans. As
it turns out, the school is not alone; this is the position taken by
most colleges and universities, though there is no law requiring such an
extortionate position. They do this despite the fact the colleges
themselves are not out the money. They have received the students’
tuition payments in full and are in effect simply acting as collection
agencies for the federal government.
The US
Department of Education says only that it “encourages” colleges to
withhold transcripts, a tactic which the department, in a letter to
colleges, claims coldly “has resulted in numerous loan repayments.”...
This article appeared at The Nation online, and was then reprinted at Common Dreams. Support internet journalism at it's source!
Read the rest of Dave's article at the original This Can't Be Happening!
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