'You Are Not a Loan': Rolling Jubilee Abolishes Millions in Student Debt
Source: by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams
Published on Wednesday, September 17, 2014
On third anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, offshoot project pays off nearly $4 million in debt for cheated students
As Occupy Wall Street marked its third anniversary on Wednesday, one offshoot group, Rolling Jubilee, made a historic achievement as the collective bought and abolished nearly $4 million in debt owed by thousands of students.
Rolling Jubilee, a project of Occupy Wall Street's Strike Debt movement, acquired debt incurred by students of Everest College, one of the operations of Corinthian Colleges (CCI), an umbrella company of for-profit schools, and paid for it at a discounted rate, clearing a total of $3.85 million from the collective debt of 2,761 people.
"Debt is the tie that binds the 99 percent, whether you are a student delinquent on your student loans or a parent struggling to pay healthcare bills," said Strike Debt activist Ann Larson. "Being forced into debt for basic social services is a systemic problem and the only solution is to respond collectively to create a new, equitable economy."
Corinthian Colleges—and by extension, Everest—is facing multiple federal fraud investigations, as well as a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for its predatory lending practices, as roughly 90 percent of its funding comes from federal student loans, Rolling Jubilee said.
Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/09/17/you-are-not-loan-rolling-jubilee-abolishes-millions-student-debt
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