Take this student loan and shove it: Will student debtors start making payments on their college loans when the government's payment holiday ends?

When we go on vacation, most of us sleep late, basking in the luxury of rising in the morning whenever we wish.

 Then our vacation ends, and we have to set our alarm clock again. And we find it damned difficult to pop out of bed at 6 AM to get to work on time.

 Something like that will happen when the U.S. Department of Education ends its pause on student loan payments. Student debtors enjoyed a grace period on their loan obligations during the COVID pandemic. They could skip their monthly student loan payments without penalty and spend that extra cash on other things—a new car, maybe.

 Millions of student borrowers benefited from this loan-payment holiday, but nobody knows how many will start making monthly payments again when the holiday comes to an end in February.

According to Politico, Education Department officials have instructed loan services to create a "safety net" for borrowers for the first three months after payment obligations begin:

 Borrowers who miss a payment during the initial 90-day period will not take a hit on their credit reports. Those borrowers will instead be automatically placed in a forbearance and be still considered current on their loans.

Student borrowers will appreciate the safety net, but will they start making their monthly loan payments again when the government's loan-payment pause finally ends?

Even before the pandemic, the default rate on student loans was considerably higher than the default rate on credit cards and car loans.

 And this pattern makes sense. Overburdened debtors who stop making car payments lose their cars. If they quit paying on their credit card balances, their cards get canceled.

 But if student-loan debtors stop making payments on their student loans, nothing happens--at least not immediately. 

 I predict that student loan defaults will spike upward this spring. Millions of student-loan debtors got permission to stop making payments in the spring of 2020, and they will find it challenging to start writing those monthly payments again, even when they are legally obligated to do so. 

To paraphrase a great country singer, I think many college debtors will take their cue from Johnny Paycheck and tell the Department of Education to take their student loans and shove 'em.

Feds spend millions on Betsy DeVos' personal security: Do Americans hate her that much?

Politico (Nicole Gaudiano and Caitlin Emma) reported that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' security detail is projected to cost taxpayers $7.87 million in the coming fiscal year. That's up by about $1.5 million over last year's cost: $6.24 million.

Betsy is protected by the U.S. Marshals Service, which says its job is to "monitor and mitigate threats" to DeVos's personal safety.

Is that cost really necessary? After all, the four previous Education secretaries were content to be protected by the Department of Education's modest security force.

I have a few comments about Secretary DeVos' security detail. First, since DeVos' security costs are going up, that must mean that threats against her are accelerating. If that's true, maybe DeVos and President Trump should ask themselves why so many people are angry with her instead of just hiring more marshals.

Indeed, millions of student-loan borrowers have lots of reasons to be mad at Betsy DeVos: her gross mishandling of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, her efforts to water down protections for students who were defrauded by their colleges, and her shameless pandering to the for-profit college industry.

But then Betsy DeVos' heavy security detail is probably not that unusual among the nation's top public officials. I feel sure that most powerful politicians--Republicans and Democrats alike--have bodyguards. Do you think Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell go to the grocery store unaccompanied?

What a world we live in! Our elected and appointed officials--people we count on to look after the public interest--are being driven around in chauffeured limousines--protected from public contact by tinted glass and armed bodyguards. The only citizens they spend any time with are rich people with big checks in their hands.

So if you want to meet Betsy DeVos, you have two choices. You can become filthy rich and make a big donation to the Republican Party. In gratitude, Betsy might invite you over for cocktails on her yacht, the Seaquest.

If you aren't rich, you won't meet Betsy DeVos unless you throw yourself in front of her limousine and get run down by her chauffeur. Maybe then you and Betsy could have a little chat about your student loans while you're waiting for an ambulance.

Betsy's yacht