By Sarah Jaffe | June 8, 2011
Has it become illegal to attend college without a giant bank account?
Kenneth Wright of Stockton, California was almost knocked down by a S.W.A.T. team breaking down his door one morning. He says they then handcuffed him and put him in the back of a police car.
Federal agents confirmed that the Department of Education was behind the raid on Wright's house. They were in search of his estranged wife, who had defaulted on her loans.
As we reported last week, recent college graduates face an unemployment rate nearly double that of the rest of the population, and African-American grads (like Wright and his wife) are looking at an unemployment rate of 19 percent (that's the U3 estimate, with the U5 & U6, it's easily 30%). Meanwhile, the cost of a college degree is at an all-time high, up 3,400% since 1972.
With the government still doing little to create jobs, even a bill that would allow grads to clear student loans off their slate in a bankruptcy filing will do little to help those laboring to pay back their loan burden.
And if this incident is any indication, it looks like those borrowers will be facing more than just bad credit when they default.
So much for the American dream.
Has it become illegal to attend college without a giant bank account?
Kenneth Wright of Stockton, California was almost knocked down by a S.W.A.T. team breaking down his door one morning. He says they then handcuffed him and put him in the back of a police car.
Federal agents confirmed that the Department of Education was behind the raid on Wright's house. They were in search of his estranged wife, who had defaulted on her loans.
As we reported last week, recent college graduates face an unemployment rate nearly double that of the rest of the population, and African-American grads (like Wright and his wife) are looking at an unemployment rate of 19 percent (that's the U3 estimate, with the U5 & U6, it's easily 30%). Meanwhile, the cost of a college degree is at an all-time high, up 3,400% since 1972.
With the government still doing little to create jobs, even a bill that would allow grads to clear student loans off their slate in a bankruptcy filing will do little to help those laboring to pay back their loan burden.
And if this incident is any indication, it looks like those borrowers will be facing more than just bad credit when they default.
So much for the American dream.
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