There's No Fool Like an Old Fool: The New York Times Just Doesn't Get It When It Comes to the Student Loan Crisis

Today, the New York Times published an editorial on the Obama administration's efforts to encourage student-loan  servicers to be less rapacious.  According to the Times, the government is changing the incentive structures so that loan-collection companies have a financial incentive to help rehabilitate student loans that are delinquent instead of pushing borrowers into default.

The Times approves of reforms that will encourage students to sign up for Income-Based Repayment Plans, plans that will have borrowers paying a percentage of their income for the next 25 years. Some reform!  The Times also likes the new rule that will give more weight to customer satisfaction surveys "in determining how well servicers do their jobs."  That idea is about as radical as Aunt Sadie's Buick Regal.

The Times editorial then goes on to say that Obama's reform efforts don't go far enough. So what does the Times suggest? "More should be done to improve competition and transparency [among loan servicers]," the Times recommends.  Borrowers should be able to jump from one loan servicer to another, the Times adds, and "set significant penalties for poor practices and create a portal where borrowers can get information about their accounts and report abuses to the Education Department instead of to the abusers."

This is the kind of timid advice you would expect from a newspaper that gets a lot of its revenue from advertising luxury goods that are targeted at its fat cat readers. I'm glad the Times wasn't in charge of negotiating with Adolph Hitler during World War II. It probably would have editorialized that Hitler needed to paint the concentration-camp barracks a more soothing color.

The Times does not seem to realize that people who fall into the hands of the student-loan servicers are dealing with truly heartless entities.  Here are some examples:

•  Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) opposed bankruptcy relief for a 63-year old man who had been unemployed for 12 years, whose home was going into foreclosure, and who had been living with his wife below the poverty level.  This man had accumulated student-loan debt in the neighborhood of $240,000. Murphy v. Educational Credit Management Corporation (2014). 
•  ECMC opposed bankruptcy relief for an elderly student-loan defaulter who had chronic health problems and who was living solely on Social Security checks of less than $800 a month. Roth v. Educational Credit Management Corporation (2013). 
•  ECMC opposed bankruptcy relief for another elderly woman with student-loan debt that was more than twenty years old and who had a salary of about $500 per month and a history of homelessness. Stevenson v. Educational Credit Management Corporation (2011).

How much do ECMC executives pay themselves to chase down poor and elderly student-loan debtors? A lot. Bloomberg reported in 2012 that Richard Boyle, ECMC's Chief Executive at the time, made $1.1 million  in 2010. I could not find more recent compensation information on Educational Credit Management Corporation's new CEO, a guy named Dave Hawn, but I'll bet that Hawn is making at least as much as Boyle made four years ago.

So, New York Times editorialists, take your tepid and inadequate editorial recommendations and stick them "where the sun don't shine"--which is within your timid and obsequious little hearts.

You want to clean up the student-loan collection business? Here are some suggestions:

1) First, President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan should instruct all the student-loan servicers not to oppose bankruptcy relief for any elderly student-loan debtor who is living solely on Social Security, who has suffered long-term unemployment, or who has no real prospect of every paying off student-loan debt.  And they should follow up with regulations or legislation that would make those instructions stick.

2)  The government needs to put an upper-limit on fees and accrued interest that get tacked on to student-loan defaulters' total loan obligations.  Several bankruptcy decisions have documented that debtors' original student loan balances had more than doubled by the time they filed for bankruptcy due to accrued interest, penalties and fees.

3) The Obama administration should propose amendments to the bankruptcy laws that will allow distressed student-loan debtors who took out loans in good faith to discharge their student loans in the bankruptcy process without going through expensive and traumatic adversary proceedings.

4) Obama should propose legislation to reinstate a reasonable statute of limitation on the collection of delinquent student-loan debt--say six years, which is the same time period that applies to the collection of most monetary obligations.

5) The President should demand legislation that would stop the federal government from garnishing the Social Security checks of elderly student-loan defaulters who are totally dependent on their Social Security pensions.

6) All the companies participating in the student-loan servicing industry should be required to post the compensation of all its senior executives online so that Americans can see just how much money so-called non-profit agencies are making on the suffering of student-loan debtors.

All these recommendations are reasonable and all are more humane than the puny little recommendations the Times made in its editorial page.  If the Times can't offer any suggestions more robust than it offered in its September 8th issue, then it should keep its mouth shut about the student-loan crisis and admit that all it is really concerned about when it comes to domestic economic issues is supporting Barack Obama and maintaining Democratic control of the White House.

References

A Fairer Shot for Student Debtors. New York Times, September 8, 2014, p. A16. 

John Hechinger. Taxpayers Fund $454,000 Pay for Collector Chasing Student Loans. Bloomberg.com, May 15, 2013. Accessible at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/taxpayers-fund-454-000-pay-for-collector-chasing-student-loans.html

Brown, M., Haughwout, A., Lee, D., Mabutas, M., and van der Klaauw, W. (2012). Grading student loans. New York: Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Accessible at: http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2012/03/grading-student-loans.html

Krieger v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 713 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2013).

Lockhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 142, 126 S. Ct. 699 (2005).

Murphy v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 511 B.R. 1 (D. Mass. 2014).

Roth v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 490 B.R. 908 (9th Cir. BAP 2013).

Stevenson v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 463 B.R. 586 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2011). 

Educational Credit Management Corporation makes good money chasing destitute student-loan debtors: The Obama Administration should take action

Richard Boyle, CEO of ECMC
He made $1.1 million in 2010

Educational Credit Management Corporation is a nonprofit company that collects on defaulted student loans for the federal government. Just because it is nonprofit, however, doesn't mean its employees don't make a lot of money. According to a news story posted on Bloomberg.com, Richard Boyle, ECMC's chief executive officer, made $1.1 million in 2010.

Other ECMC employees are also making good money.  Dave Hawn, ECMC's chief operating officer, made about half a million dollars in 2010. Joshua Mandelman, an ECMC debt collector, made $454,000. And ECMC directors also do pretty well. According to the Bloomberg story, they make as much as $90,000 a year.

How does ECMC make its money? It gets a small fee for helping distressed student-loan borrowers avoid default. But it makes much more money when it collects money from student borrowers who defaulted. By law, ECMC (and other similar companies) "can receive as much as 37 percent of a borrower's entire loan amount, half in collection costs and half in taxpayer-funded commissions" (Bloomberg.com).

What a sleazy business.  People are getting rich chasing down student-loan defaulters, many of whom are unemployed and destitute.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of ECMC's business is the position it takes when student-loan debtors file for bankruptcy. In several cases, ECMC has argued that bankrupt student-loan debtors should not have their loans discharged in bankruptcy. Instead, ECMC has argued, these debtors should be placed in income-based repayment plans that can last as long as 25 years.

Roth case: Elderly woman with health problems seeks bankruptcy relief from student loans

For example, in a recent case, Janet Roth, a 64-year old woman, filed for bankruptcy, seeking to discharge $95,000 in student loan debt.  Actually, she only borrowed $33,000, but her debt tripled due to fees and accrued interest.

At the time of the bankruptcy proceedings, Roth was unemployed and living entirely on her monthly Social Security check--only $774.  In addition, she suffered from several serious health conditions, including diabetes, macular degeneration, and depression.

Now most people would think that Ms. Roth was a good candidate for bankruptcy. But in court proceedings, ECMC challenged her request for bankruptcy relief from her student loans. ECMC argued she should have signed up for a 25-year income-based repayment plan, a plan that would have ended when she was almost 90 years old!

Fortunately, the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was sympathetic to Ms. Roth's plight. The court said Ms. Roth had acted in good faith regarding her student-loan obligations, and it discharged her of the debt.

Can you imagine? A company run by a guy who makes more than a million dollars a year argued that an elderly woman with health issues and living on her Social Security check should make monthly payments on her student loans for 25 years! These ECMC guys make Ebenezer Scrooge look like Mother Teresa.

Want another example? In In re Stevenson (2011), an elderly woman with a history of homelessness  and who was living on less than $1,000 a month, was denied relief from her student-loan debt by a bankruptcy court in Massachusetts. ECMC opposed her effort to have her student loans discharged, and a court essentially forced Ms. Stevenson into a 25-year income-based repayment plan. Like Ms. Roth, Ms. Stevenson will be nearly 90 years old when her student-loan debt is discharged.

And take a look at the Krieger case. In Krieger v. Educational Credit Management Corporation (2013), ECMC opposed the discharge of a 53 year old woman's student-loan debt even though she was unemployed and had never made more than $12,000 a year during her entire working life.

President Obama Should Take Executive Action to Aid Elderly Student Loan Debtors

Ms. Roth, Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Krieger are not alone. According to a report prepared for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, about five percent of people who are behind on their student-loan payments are 60 years old or older. Undoubtedly, many of these people are living almost solely on their Social Security checks or are destitute.

Surely, elderly student-loan defaulters are entitled to some relief. Unfortunately, their Social Security checks are subject to garnishment, and some of them are running into opposition when they file for bankruptcy.

President Obama likes to get things done through executive orders.  So how about this for a plan? President Obama should direct all student-loan collection agencies not to oppose elderly people's efforts to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy.  And he should stop the garnishment of elderly people's Social Security checks for the purpose of collecting on student loans.

President Obama can talk all he wants about how he wants to ease the burden on people who borrow money to attend college. But there are things he can do--simple things--that would ease the burden on elderly student-loan defaulters. So why doesn't he take action?

References

John Hechinger. Taxpayers Fund $454,000 Pay for Collector Chasing Student Loans. Bloomberg.com, May 15, 2013. Accessible at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/taxpayers-fund-454-000-pay-for-collector-chasing-student-loans.html

Brown, M., Haughwout, A., Lee, D., Mabutas, M., and van der Klaauw, W. (2012). Grading student loans. New York: Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Accessible at: http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2012/03/grading-student-loans.html

Krieger v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 713 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2013).

Lockhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 142, 126 S. Ct. 699 (2005).

Roth v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 490 B.R. 908 (9th Cir. BAP 2013).

Stevenson v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 463 B.R. 586 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2011).