Strike Debt

‘I Learned More Leading Student-Debt Strike Than I Did at College’

August 23, 2015 Nathan Hornes, www.yesmagazine.org Resist! Higher Education, Strike Debt, Student Activism, Student Debt

By Nathan Hornes for Yes! Magazine - Soon after we started our campaign, Debt Collective, a debt resistance group that grew out of Occupy Wall Street, contacted us. They had heard some of the complaints about Everest and had also heard about our activism. When we met with them they told us how they had recently figured out a way to buy medical debt for pennies on the dollar and abolish it. They wanted to start doing the same for student loan debt. The people we met through Debt Collective also told us about how Corinthian Colleges—the group of colleges Everest belongs to—had been screwing over students across the country. Up until then I’d thought it was just my campus, but then I began to understand that tons of people were dealing with our same problems. Debt Collective helped us take our campaign to the next level. Now I’m known as the guy who helped shape the very first student debt strike.

Rolling Jubilee: This Debt Fairy Has A Big Plan

October 5, 2014 Sheryl Harris, www.cleveland.com Resist! Debt, Strike Debt, Student Debt

Last month, CFPB sued Corinthian in an effort to force the school to forgive or refund $569 million to students for what the bureau says were predatory private loans. Rolling Jubilee forgave about $3.5 million in private Corinthian loan debt. Gokey acknowledges that's a drop in the bucket considering Americans collectively owe more than $1 trillion on student loans. But the group has a bigger end game. Strike Debt is wrapping up the Rolling Jubilee project. Gokey estimates it has enough money left to buy two or three more debt portfolios before it exhausts its funds. And then ..... the debt fairy morphs into a debt demon.

Rolling Jubilee Abolishes $3.85 Million In Student Debt

September 17, 2014 Nona Willis Aronowitz, www.nbcnews.com Organize! Debt, Rolling Jubilee, Strike Debt, Student Debt

Starting today, Rolling Jubilee is pivoting to the student loan crisis. On the third anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Rolling Jubilee has announced its purchase of $3.85 million worth of student debt from Everest Colleges, a portfolio they bought for only $100,000. Everest is part of the troubled for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges, which effectively went out of business this summer after the Department of Education withheld federal loan funds for 21 days. The company has been the subject of numerous investigations from attorneys general across the country and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which announced a $500 million lawsuit against Corinthian on Tuesday. This past week was a happy one for Goldman and the more than 2,700 students whose debt was erased by Rolling Jubilee. But for the group’s members, these tactics are less a solution to student debt, which reached $1.2 trillion this year, and more an opportunity to raise consciousness about the crisis and politicize student debtors to rally around a common cause. “This isn’t just a stunt or a spectacle,” said Astra Taylor, 34, a member of Rolling Jubilee who has $45,000 in student loans. “This isn’t a long-term plan, either. The point is to touch people where they are, and try to create a political awareness out of that.”

Rolling Jubilee Student Debt Abolishment

August 6, 2014 Strike Debt, www.strikedebt.org Resist! Education, Finance, Strike Debt, Student Debt

This time, it’s different. Since the beginning of the Rolling Jubilee campaign, we’ve wanted to buy and abolish student debt. But most student loans are guaranteed by the federal government, and so they are not available for purchase. As part of our effort to buy private, unsecured student loans, we talked to Doug St. Peters, the Vice President of Portfolio Management at Sallie Mae, who packages that company’s debt into securities and sells your loans on the secondary market. He confirmed that Sallie Mae does sell its private loans to two large debt buying companies. He would not name names, and he refused to sell us any of these portfolios when he learned that we intended to abolish the debt. According to St. Peters, private Sallie Mae loans are sold for as little as 15 cents on the dollar. We repeat: a Vice President at Sallie Mae confirmed that they sell private loans for 15 cents on the dollar. One goal of the Rolling Jubilee campaign has been to educate ourselves and others about how little our debts are actually worth to the creditors who control our lives. If you have a private Sallie Mae loan, you should know that it may be sold at pennies on the dollar, even as the lender and debt collectors demand full payment, plus interest, from you.

New! Debt Resisters Operations Manual

April 2, 2014 Strike Debt, www.strikedebt.org Strategize! Debt, Poverty, Strike Debt

The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual (DROM) seeks to provide widely applicable yet detailed information about debt as well as strategies for resistance. It highlights our commonalities—namely, that people are not alone in their struggles against debt—as well as our different relationships to debt. We strive to analyze debt from many different angles, always maintaining a nuanced, critical analysis that is conscious of race, gender, class, sexuality, age, ability, and their intersections. We strive to write in simple language and will work to translate the manual into languages other than English. A 120-page pamphlet version of the manual was collectively researched and written in August 2012 as a contribution to strengthening and expanding the debt resistance movement.

Jubilee USA Files to Supreme Court in Landmark Debt Case

March 24, 2014 Staff, www.jubileeusa.org Educate! Debt, Poverty, Strike Debt

The Supreme Court would likely decide by the summer whether or not it will actually hear the case. In a separate case currently before the Supreme Court, Argentina sought review of a lower court decision allowing NML Capital to target assets outside of Argentina. The United States filed an amicus brief in support of Argentina, arguing that Argentina's assets are immune from seizure under federal sovereign immunity law. These cases go back to 2001, when Argentina defaulted on roughly $81 billion in debt. Multiple hedge funds purchased debt for pennies on the dollar. These hedge funds are called "vulture" funds because they prey on countries in financial distress and target assets that benefit poor populations.

Student Protests Result In Withdrawal Of “Success Fee”

February 27, 2014 Claudia Jambor, www.sonomastatestar.com Resist! Education, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Strike Debt, Student Activism

President of Sonoma State University RubenArmiñana explained two funding alternatives that could be used to increase class availabilities. Firstly, chancellor of the California State University (CSU) System, Timothy White, is introducing new funding in the form of graduation initiatives in next year’s budget. Secondly, next year’s budget will provide more funding for campuses toward enrollment growth. “We will use the money we get in the next budget for enrollment growth and whatever we get from the graduation initiative from the chancellor toward hopefully increasing classavailabilities,” Armiñana said. Armiñana said both the graduation initiative and extra funding for enrollment in next year’s budget would not prove to be as effective in supporting increased class availabilitiesas the proposed Academic Success fee, an annual student fee increase of $500. “Those two measures would not be as vigorous as what would have happened if the fee got approved,” Armiñana said. Community Service Advisor and sophomore Veronica Saxer described the administration’s decision to drop the Academic Success fee as “bittersweet.”

5 Things To Know About College Student Debt

February 26, 2014 Matthew Zeitlin www.occupy.com Educate! Strike Debt, Student Activism

3.More college students are borrowing, no matter what type of degree they’re getting. For all types of undergraduate degrees — bachelor’s, associate, and certificates — the percentage of degree recipients borrowing has gone up over the last four and eight years. The biggest jump has been in associate degrees, from only 36.4% of graduates borrowing in 2004 to almost half in 2012. 4.Students who complete degrees at for-profit colleges are way more likely to graduate with more debt than their public school counterparts. “There is still significant variation depending on the type of school a graduate attended,” Miller writes. The biggest difference is between students going to public institutions and for-profit private ones: “42 percent of students earning an associate degree at a… public college borrow. This is less than half the rate of students seeking similar degrees at private for-profit colleges, where nearly nine in ten students graduate with debt.” While the average amount of debt is going up for borrowers regardless of what type of college they attend, the average debt for students who get a degree at private or for-profit institutions is growing faster.

The Only Way To Solve Student Debt Crisis: Strategic Resistance

February 16, 2014 Bill Zimmerman, www.alternet.org Resist! Education, Finance and the Economy, Strike Debt, Student Activism, Youth

There is only one way out of the student loan crisis — civil disobedience on a massive scale. Two reforms could bring a fair settlement to banks and borrowers alike. However, while fair, these reforms would cost the banks billions in receivables, which means they will use their considerable political influence to block them. That's why civil disobedience is the only way to succeed. This is an emergency. In addition to the deepening distress experienced by millions of former students, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and several other governmental agencies have all warned that the $1.1 trillion in unsecured educational debt, much of which will never be repaid, creates a significant danger to the entire economy similar to that generated by housing debt in 2008. This crisis is too big to sweep under the rug. Currently, close to ten million broke and under-employed former students are trapped in a debtors' prison without walls.

Strike Debt Moves From Jubilee To Refusal

January 22, 2014 Strike Debt, createsend.com Resist! Direct Action, Strike Debt

Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal also marks the transition of Strike Debt beyond the Rolling Jubilee, which successfully abolished almost $15m of debt in one year. Conceived as a limited project, the Rolling Jubilee had an enormous public impact, and far surpassed our goals. While we still have funds to spend on debt buys, we have closed the fund for new contributions so that we can focus our energies on the larger, more long-term goal of building a debtors’ movement. If you want to set up your own Strike Debt chapter, starting with a reading group of Creditocracy is a good way to get one going in your area.

Strike Debt’s Rolling Jubilee Has Abolished $13.5 Million In Medical Debt

November 11, 2013 Staff, www.sparrowmedia.net Create! Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Strike Debt

Strike Debt, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, announced this morning that since the launch of the group’s Rolling Jubilee effort one year ago, it has abolished $13.5 million worth of medical debt owed by 2,693 people across 45 states and in Puerto Rico. This is the third announcement by Strike Debt in the last year which to date has abolished over $14.7 million dollars of medical bills through its Rolling Jubilee project. The Rolling Jubilee campaign relieves debtors (by buying debt for pennies on the dollar) while building a debt resistance movement. This project highlights the injustice of having to go into debt for basic needs that should be publicly provided, like education and healthcare. “We have been honored to facilitate this effort but understand Rolling Jubilee is a spark, not a solution” said Andrew Ross, a fellow Strike Debt organizer. “Being forced into debt for basic social services is a systemic problem that will require a collective response.” “No one should have to go into debt or bankruptcy because they get sick,” said Laura Hanna, an organizer with Strike Debt, noting that 62% of all personal bankruptcies have medical debt as a contributing factor.

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