Hofstra Law School Graduate incurs nearly one million dollars in debt: Dufrane v. Navient Solutions

Who holds the record for accumulating the most debt while going to college and law school? I don't know, but it might be Scott Dufrane.

Mr. Dufrane attended Thomas Jefferson Law School and graduated from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University in 2009. He financed his undergraduate and legal education with student loans, and by the time he received his law degree, he had incurred debt of nearly a million dollars--or more specifically, $900,000.

Dufrane filed for bankruptcy in 2015. At that time  he owed the U.S. Department of Education approximately $400,000; and he owed various private creditors about $500,000. 

A short time after filing his bankruptcy petition, Dufrane filed an adversary complaint in an effort to discharge his private loans. In his complaint, he argued that the private loans fell outside the protection of the "undue hardship" rule and were dischargeable.

Dufrane owed SunTrust Bank about $90,000, and SunTrust moved to dismiss Dufrane's adversary complaint on the grounds that the SunTrust loans were protected by 11 U.S.C. sec. 523(a)(8) and could not be discharged unless Dufrane met the "undue hardship" standard.

But Dufrane had an answer to SunTrust's argument.

He argued that the private loans were not "qualified student loans" under 11 U.S.C. sec. 528(a) (8) and could be discharged like any other nonsecured debt.  Dufrane said that the private lenders had solicited him to borrow money while he was in school without any inquiry "regarding need, cost of tuition, or cost of any other education-related expense." In addition, the private lenders' solicitations "generally stated that the money could be used for anything, and that it would be disbursed directly to [Dufrane]" and not through any school.

Moreover, Dufrane alleged, all the private loan money was disbursed directly to him "without any input, knowledge or approval of the Financial Aid Office . . ."

Judge Peter Carroll, a California bankruptcy judge, agreed with Dufrane and ruled that the private loans were not the type of loan that Congress intended to exclude from bankruptcy relief.   Judge Carroll acknowledged that federal courts were divided on this issue, but he agreed with courts that interpreted the law in harmony with Dufrane's position. Therefore, the judge denied SunTrust's motion to dismiss. Under the rationale of Judge Carroll's ruling, it seems possible that all $500,000 of Carroll's private loan debt will ultimately discharged.

What is the significance of the Dufrane decision?

First, as Judge Carroll pointed out, the federal courts are in disagreement about whether some private student loans are subject to the "undue hardship" rule, and this controversy may ultimately go to the Supreme Court. For now, however, student borrowers who responded to bank solicitations by taking out private loans and who received the money directly have an argument that those loans are dischargeable in bankruptcy like any other consumer loan.

Second, the Dufrane case illustrates the recklessness of student-loan creditors--both the federal government and private banks.  It was insane for the Department of Education to loan Dufrane $400,000 for college and lawschool studies.  And of course it was insane for private lenders to loan Dufrane $500,000 while he was in law school.

Almost no one who accumulates nearly a million dollars in debt to get a college degree and a law degree will ever be able to pay back that amount of money.  Hofstra's law school is ranked 118 on the list of best law schools published by U.S. News & World Report. But even if Hofstra had graduated from Yale Law School at the top of his class, it is unlikely he would have obtained a job that would allow him to pay back $900,000.

Millions of Americans are struggling with  student-loan debt. Last year, student borrowers were defaulting at an average rate of 3,000 a day. 

The Department of Education is urging borrowers to enroll in income driven repayment plans (IDRs), but the Government Accountability Office reported last December that about half of a sample of people who signed up for IDRs failed to recertify their income as the program requires (p. 36). It seems obvious that IDRs are no magic bullet for the student-loan crisis.

Bankruptcy relief is the only viable option for people whose student loans are out of control. Last month, Congressmen John Delaney (D-Maryland) and John Katko (R-New York) filed a bill to make student-loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy like any other nonsecured loan.  This bill is unlikely to become law in this Congressional session; but someday, Congress will be forced by reality to pass some form of the Delaney-Katko bill.

References

Dufrane v. Navient Solutions, Inc. (In re Dufrane), 566 B.R. 28 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2017).

Representative John Delaney press release. Delaney and Katko File Legislation to Help Americans Struggling with Student Loan Debt, May 5, 2017.

Representative John Katko press release. Reps. Katko and Delaney File Legislation to Help Americans Struggling with Student Loan Debt. May 8, 2017.

The Wrong Move on Student Loans. New York Times, April 6, 2017.

US. Government Accounting Office. Federal Student Loans: Education Needs to Improve Its Income-Driven Repayment Plan Budget Estimates. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, November, 2016.

Parents Plus Loans can be a nightmare: "Teach your children well . . ."

Teach your children well,

Their father's hell did slowly go by.

Teach the Children Well

Lyrics by Graham Nash

More than three million parents have taken out student loans for their children's college education. Eleven percent are in default, and another 180,000 are delinquent in their payments.

Congress created the Parent Plus program in 1980, which allows parents to obtain student loans to supplement the loans their children take out to finance their college studies. As Josh Mitchell reported in the Wall Street Journal last week, outstanding indebtedness on Parent Plus loans now tops $77 billion. 

The government issues Parent Plus loans with little regard to whether the parents can pay them back. Many parents who take out Parent Plus loans have subprime credit scores, which means they run a high risk of default. As Mitchell pointed out,  the Parent Plus default rate is higher than the home mortgage default rate during the 2008 housing crisis.

Without question, Parent Plus loans are being issued recklessly. "This credit is being extended on terms that specifically, willfully ignore their ability to repay," a spokesperson for Harvard Law School's Legal Services Center charged. "You can't avoid that we're targeting high-cost, high-dollar-amount loans to people who we know can't afford them."

To its credit, the Obama administration recognized that lending standards for Parent Plus loans were too lax. In 2011, the Department of Education introduced modest underwriting rules to prevent parents with low credit ratings from taking out Parent Plus loans.

But the higher education industry protested, arguing that tighter underwriting standards for Parent Plus loans would reduce college access for low-income and minority students. In response to this pressure, the Department of Education withdrew the new rules.

Obviously, people who are taking out student loans for their children are older; two thirds of Parent Plus borrowers are between the ages of 50 and 64. Many of them have student loans of their own. Some parents took out Parent Plus loans expecting their children to get good jobs and take over the loan payments.  But sometimes that doesn't happen, and the parents find themselves responsible for paying off loans they can't afford to repay.

Parents who default on Parent Plus loans risk having their income-tax refunds seized and their Social Security checks garnished. And bankruptcy is rarely an option. Parents who default on their children's student loans will find it difficult to discharge those loans in bankruptcy even if they are unemployed or in ill health.

In an NPR podcast, Michelle Singletary, a finance columnist, pointed out that many parents take out Parent Plus loans to help their children attend expensive colleges their families can't afford. It is difficult, Singletary acknowledged, for parents to tell their children that a particular elite college is simply out of financial reach.

The child might say, "But this is my dream college." If that happens, Singletary advised, the parent must have the wisdom and fortitude to say, "Honey, you need to find another dream."

Or, as songwriter Graham Nash might put it, "Teach your children well" regarding their college choices because if you borrow money for your child to go to college and can't pay it back, you will enter financial hell, a hell that will go by slowly.

References

Tom Ashbrook. Parents On the Hook for Student Loans. NPR Onpoint (podcast), April 26, 2017.

Josh Mitchell. The U.S. Makes It Easy for Parents to Get College Loans--Repaying Them Is Another Story. Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2017. 

Note: Quotations in this essay come from the sources cited in the reference list.

Recent Navient and National Collegiate Student Loan Bankruptcy Rulings – March 2017: A Must-Read Article by Steve Rhode

If you are overwhelmed by your student loans and thinking about filing for bankruptcy, you should read this essay by Steve Rhode. Mr. Rhode examined recent bankruptcy court adversary proceedings in which student borrowers brought complaints against Navient or National Collegiate Student Loan Trust. As Mr. Rhode relates, debtors often won significant relief in these lawsuits--sometimes through settlement agreements.

Why is Mr. Rhode's article important to you?

First, his article contains links to adversary complaints that were drafted by attorneys. If you file your own adversary complaint against your student-loan creditor, you can use these complaints as templates to file your own complaint.

Second, the proceedings Mr. Rhode examined show various theories under which debtors sought to have their loans discharged. Some of those theories might work for you.

I am frankly surprised that debtors were so successful in the cases Mr. Rhode analyzed. I wonder whether Navient and National Collegiate Student Loan Trust are more amenable to settlement than Educational Credit Management Corporation and the U.S. Department of Education. ECMC and the Department of Education have opposed bankruptcy relief in a multitude of cases, even in cases where it was clear the debtor was desperate. (See for example, Roth v. ECMC and Abney v. U.S. Department of Education.)

Mr. Rhode has presented us with a very useful analysis of recent adversary proceedings against Navient and National Collegiate Student Loan Trust. A trend may be developing toward better bankruptcy outcomes for distressed student-loan debtors. Wouldn't that be a terrific development?

******

Out of curiosity I decided to take a look at recent bankruptcy Adversary Proceedings that had closed against Navient and National Collegiate Student Loan Trust. I looked at a number of cases and it appears people who filed their own Adversary Proceeding against their student loan holders had a less favorable outcome. Those people represented by an attorney, fair better.

At the very least, while the debt may not have been completely eliminated there were certainly some very deep discounts in the amount owed. Also the outcomes in all cases is not always apparent.

For example in Medina v. National Collegiate Student Loan Trust there was an apparent settlement agreement that contained a “release of liability. The Adversary Proceeding was then dismissed. – Source

Medina had asserted in his lawyer prepared complaint that his student loans should be discharged because his flight school was a “sham,” the loans were not used for a qualified educational purpose, and the school was not properly certified. These are issues raised over in this article. – Source

In the case Ard-Kelly v Sallie Mae the debtor owed $913,997 in loans. Of those loans all but $250,595 could be included in a $0 monthly Income Contingent Repayment plan. – Source

It appears all but $219,070 was found to be dischargeable in bankruptcy. While $219,070 is still a lot of money, it’s only 24% of the original balance stated. – Source

In Cotter v. Navient, the debtor had filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy but was said to have still owed about $29,000 in student loan debt. Cotter stated, “Plaintiff incurred this student loan attending a school named ComputerTraining.com. The campus was located at 550 Polaris Parkway Westerville Ohio 43082. The Plaintiff started classes at said school on November 16, 2007 and was able to finish however the education he received was substandard, outdated and useless to him. Furthermore the school promised lifetime job placement assistance along with assistance with interviewing and resumes. The school he attended closed soon after he finished. The school in question is currently part of a class action lawsuit for fraud.” – Source

Following the court action regarding this debt the $29,000 balance was reduced to $2,500 with payments of $35.79 per month at 1% interest. This is about a 92% reduction in the amount owed. The debt will be fully repaid in 72 months. – Source

In Proctor v. Navient the debtor had co-signed for student loans for someone who was not a relative or dependent and said to not be qualified student loans protected in bankruptcy. – Source

The $188,787 balance was reduced to $15,535 at 3% interest and payments of $107.28 per month for 180 months. This is about a 92% reduction in the amount owed. – Source

So as you can see, recent closed bankruptcy Adversary Proceeding cases do result generally in some significant reductions in debt owed.

Steve Rhode
Get Out of Debt Guy – Twitter, G+, Facebook

This article by Steve Rhode first appeared on Get Out of Debt Guy and was distributed by the Personal Finance Syndication Network.

Educational Credit Management Corporation is a bad actor: Rafael Pardo's article about ECMC's litigation misbehavior

In recent blogs, I discussed two cases in which Educational Credit Management Corporation, the Department of Education's most ruthless student-loan debt collector, was sanctioned by a court for misbehavior. In the Bruner-Halteman case, a Texas bankruptcy judge assessed punitive damages against ECMC for garnishing the wages of a bankrupt Starbucks employee in violation of the Bankruptcy Code's automatic stay provision. The judge awarded Ms. Bruner-Halteman $74,000 in punitive damages--$2,000 for each of the 37 times ECMC wrongly garnished her wages.

In the Hann case, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld sanctions against ECMC for trying to collect on a student loan debt in spite of the fact that a federal bankruptcy judge had ruled that the debt had been paid.

Are these isolated cases of misbehavior? No they are not. In 2014, Rafael Pardo published an article in the University of Florida Law Review that documents how often ECMC's attorneys engage in "pollutive litigation" in cases against hapless bankrupt student-loan debtors.

Pardo's article is long (77 pages) and a bit dense and technical (477 footnotes).  I will limit my discussion of his impressive essay to a few of the highlights:

Failure to file corporate ownership statement

The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure require corporate parties in adversary proceedings to file a "corporate ownership statement" that identifies any corporate party that directly or indirectly owns 10 percent or more of the corporate party's equity interests. According to Pardo's analysis of a random sample of cases, ECMC failed to file its corporate ownership statement 81 percent of the time during 2011 and 2012.

What is the significance of ECMC's noncompliance This is what Pardo said:

The significance of such procedural noncompliance is that, in the overwhelming majority of these adversary proceedings, ECMC has failed to provide the presiding judge with the information necessary to determine whether [the judge] has a financial interest in ECMC that would warrant self-disqualification. Even assuming that ECMC would not have had to report any entity in the corporate ownership statement if ECMC had been procedurally compliant, the failure to file the statement casts a cloud on the legitimacy of the outcomes of proceedings that ended favorably for ECMC. (p. 2149)

Motion Practice 

Pardo also documented incidents when ECMC failed to abide by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in its motion practice.  First, in some adversary proceedings a student-loan debtor fails to name ECMC as a defendant, probably because the debtor did not know the name of the correct party to sue. In such cases, ECMC is required to state with particularity that the debtor's student-loan debt has been assigned to ECMC and that it is the proper party to litigate whether the debt is dischargeable.

Pardo found that ECMC often asserted itself as the proper party in an adversary proceeding without filing the appropriate representations about its interests. First, Pardo found that in 9.2 percent of a random sample of cases, ECMC didn't file any motion to become a named party; it simply entered into the litigation as if it had been named in the student-debtor's complaint. (p. 2153)

Furthermore, when ECMC did file a motion to join the litigation, the motion contained a substantive deficiency 80 percent of the time (in the cases Pardo examined).  Deficiencies included failing to allege assignment of the loan, failure to provide documentation of a loan's assignment, and failure to indicate which of the Federal Rules entitled it to be granted relief.

One might respond to Pardo's findings with a yawning so-what, but as Pardo pointed out, "Such procedural noncompliance is significant because it calls into question the legitimacy of a court's decision to allow a movant who may not have a valid basis to join the litigation" (p. 2153). Moreover, the fact that bankruptcy courts have allowed ECMC to get away with these procedural violations suggests that the courts aren't looking closely enough to determine whether ECMC has the right to insert itself into a student-debtor's adversary proceeding.

Responsive-Pleading Practice

Pardo's research found that student debtors named ECMC as a named defendant about 24 percent of the time. In such cases, ECMC filed an improper response in about one case out of four. (p. 256)

In the majority of the cases Pardo examined, the debtor did not name ECMC as a defendant. In those cases, ECMC was required to file a motion to intervene on the grounds that it was the proper named party. In the cases Pardo reviewed, ECMC filed an improper response 89 percent of the time. For example, ECMC would sometimes answer a student debtor's complaint before it had served its motion to intervene.

How these irregularities affects a student-debtor's interest is a bit complicated, and I invite you to read Pardo's discussion on that issue. But it is remarkable, in my view, that ECMC, a sophisticated debt collector, fails to abide by the Federal Rules of Procedure on so many occasions.

Discovery Practice

Pardo also found significant rules violation in ECMC's discovery practices. In particular, Pardo found a case in which ECMC moved for summary judgment based on a student debtor's deemed admissions even though ECMC had wrongly asked the debtor to admit to a conclusion of law.

In my mind, ECMC engages in serious misconduct when it formally asks a bankrupt student-loan debtor to admit to conclusions of law--especially an unsophisticated debtors who is not represented by an attorney.  Not only are such requests impermissible under the Federal Rules, but student debtors may not know that; and they may also not know that an unanswered Request for Admission is deemed to be admitted.

Conclusion: ECMC engages in "pollutive litigation" and it uses taxpayer's money to do so

Pardo characterized ECMC's bankruptcy-case behavior as "pollutive litigation," and that's putting the matter mildly. ECMC gets reimbursed by the federal government for its attorney fees--fees that are often spent harassing unsophisticated debtors who do not even have lawyers.

Moreover, ECMC frequently wears student debtors down just by prolonging the litigation. Janet Roth, for example, an elderly woman living on Social Security income of less than $800 a month, filed for bankruptcy in January 2009. Her case was not concluded until April 2013, more than four years later.

There are a lot of things Congress can do to clean up the student-loan mess and bring relief to millions of suffering student debtors. But shutting down ECMC would be a big step in the right direction.

The Department of Education Should Shut This Bad Boy Down.

References

Bruner-Halteman v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, Case No. 12-324-HDH-13, ADV. No. 14-03041 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 2016).

Hann v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 711 F.3d 235 (1st Cir. 2013).

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

Natalie Kitroeff. Loan Monitor is Accused of Ruthless Tactics on Student Debt. New York Times, January 1, 2014. Acccessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/us/loan-monitor-is-accused-of-ruthless-tactics-on-student-debt.html?_r=0

Rafael Pardo. The Undue Hardship Thicket: On Access to Justice, Procedural Noncompliance and Pollutive Litigation in Bankruptcy. 66 Florida Law Review 2101-2178.

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

Robert Shireman and Tariq Habash. Have Student Loan Guaranty Agencies Lost Their Way? The Century Foundation, September 29, 2016. Accessible at https://tcf.org/content/report/student-loan-guaranty-agencies-lost-way/

Alan and Catherine Murray are Poster Children for the Student Loan Crisis: Income-Driven Repayment Plans for Distressed Student-Loan Debtors are Insane

In a recent post, I wrote about Alan and Catherine Murray, who won a partial discharge of their student-loan debt in a bankruptcy case decided in December 2016.  Educational Credit Management (ECMC), the creditor in their case, is appealing the decision. We should all hope ECMC loses the appeal, because the Murrays are the poster children for the student-loan crisis.

Alan and Catherine Murray: Poster Children for the Student-Loan Crisis

Alan and Catherine Murray, a married couple in their late forties, took out 31 federal student loans to get bachelor's degrees and master's degrees in the early 1990s. In all, they borrowed about $77,000, not an unreasonable amount, given the fact that they used the loans to get a total of four degrees.

In 1996, the Murrays consolidated all those loans, a sensible thing to do; and they began making payments on the consolidated loans at 9 percent interest.  Over the years they made payments totally $58,000--or 70 percent of what they borrowed.

Nevertheless, during some periods, the Murrays obtained economic hardship deferments on their loans, which allowed them to skip some payments. Interest continued to accrue, however; and by 2014, when the Murrays filed for bankruptcy, their $77,000 debt had ballooned to $311,000!

Fortunately for the Murrays, Judge Dale Somers, a Kansas bankruptcy judge, granted them a partial discharge of their massive debt. Judge Somers ruled that the Murrays had managed their student loans in good faith, but they would never be able to pay back the $311,000 they owed. Very sensibly, he reduced their debt to $77,000, which is the amount they borrowed, and canceled all the accumulated interest.

 Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC), the Murrays' student-loan creditor, appealed Judge Somers' ruling. The Murrays should have been placed in an income-driven repayment plan (IDR), ECMC argued, which would have required them to pay about $1,000 a month for a period of 20 years.

Obviously, ECMC's argument is insane. As Judge Somers pointed out, interest was accruing on the Murrays' debt at the rate of almost $2,000 a month. Thus ECMC's proposed payment schedule would have resulted in the Murrays' debt growing by a thousand dollars a month even if they faithfully made their loan payments. By the end of their 20-year payment term, their total debt would have grown to at least two thirds of a million dollars.

The Murrays' case is not atypical: Billions of dollars in student loans are negatively amortizing

You might think the Murray case is an anomaly, but it is not. Millions of people took out student loans, made payments in good faith, and wound up owing two, three, or even four times what they borrowed. In other words, millions of student loans are negatively amortizing--they are growing larger, not smaller, during the repayment period.

For example, Brenda Butler, whose bankruptcy case was decided last year, borrowed $14,000 to get a bachelor's degree in English from Chapman University, which she obtained in 1995. Like the Murrays, she made good faith efforts to pay off her loans, but she was unemployed from time to time and could not always make her loan payments.

By the time Butler filed for bankruptcy in 2014, her debt had doubled to $32,000, even though she had made payments totally $15,000--a little more than the amount she borrowed.

Unfortunately for Ms. Butler, her bankruptcy judge was not as compassionate as the Murrays' judge. The judge ruled that Butler should stay on a 25-year repayment plant, which would terminate in 2037, 42 years after she graduated from Chapman University.

Here is sad reality. Millions of people are seeing their total student-loan indebtedness go up--not down--after they begin repayment. According to the Brookings Institution,  more than half of the 2012 cohort of student-loan borrowers saw their total indebtedness go up two years after beginning the repayment phase.  Among students who attended for-profit colleges, three out of four saw their loan balances grow larger two years into repayment.

An analysis by Inside Higher Ed concluded that less that half of college borrowers (47 percent) had made any progress on paying off their student loans 5 years into repayment. In the for-profit sector, only about a third (35 percent) had paid anything down on their student loans  over a 5-year period.

And the Wall Street Journal reported recently that half the students at more than a thousand colleges and schools had not reduced their loan balances by one dime seven years after their repayment obligations began.

The Federal Student Loan Program is a Train Wreck

Awhile back, Senator Elizabeth Warren accused the federal government of making "obscene" profits on student loans because the interest rates were higher than the government's cost of borrowing money. Warren's charge might have been true if people were paying back their loans, but they are not.

Eight million people are in default and millions more are seeing their student-loan balances grow larger with each passing month.  The Murrays are the poster children for this tragedy because they handled their loans in good faith and still wound up owing four times what they borrowed.

In short, the federal student loan program is a train wreck. Judge Somers' solution for the Murrays was to wipe out the accrued interest on their debt and to simply require them to pay back the principle. This is the only sensible way to deal with the massive problem of negative amortization.

References

Butler v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, No. 14-71585, Adv. No. 14-07069 (Bankr. C.D. Ill. Jan. 27, 2016).

Paul Fain. Feds' data error inflated loan repayment rates on the College Scoreboard. Inside Higher Ed, January 16, 2017.

Andrea Fuller. Student Debt Payback Far Worse Than Believed. Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2017.

Adam Looney & Constantine Yannelis, A crisis in student loans? How changes in the characteristics of borrowers and in the institutions they attended contributed to rising default rates. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution (2015).

Murray v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, Case No. 14-22253, ADV. No. 15-6099, 2016 Banrk. LEXIS 4229 (Bankr. D. Kansas, December 8, 2016).

Ruth Tam. Warren: Profits from student loans are 'obscene.' Washington Post, July 17, 2013.

A Texas bankruptcy court slaps ECMC with punitive damages for repeatedly garnishing a Starbucks employee's paychecks in violation of the automatic stay provision: "The Ragged Edge"

Anyone who has dealt with Educational Credit Management Corporation as a debtor knows that it is a ruthless and heartless organization. As one of the federal government's student-loan debt collectors, it has harassed hapless creditors thousands of time. It was ECMC that opposed bankruptcy relief for Janet Roth, an elderly woman with chronic health problems who was living on less than $800 a month.

But the Roth case does not fully display ECMC's callousness.  A better illustration of its merciless behavior is found in Bruner-Halteman v. ECMC, decided by a Texas bankruptcy court last April.

Bruner-Halteman was a single mother who worked at Starbucks, living, as the bankruptcy court observed, "on the ragged edge where any adversity can be catastrophic." She owed about $5,000 on a student loan issued by Sallie Mae, and she was in default.

In 2012, ECMC garnished Bruner-Halteman's  Starbucks wages, and she filed for bankruptcy, which, under federal law, triggers an automatic stay of all garnishment activities. ECMC received notice of the bankruptcy filing, and even participated as a creditor in Bruner-Halteman's bankruptcy proceedings. But it continued to garnish Bruner-Halteman's wages for almost two years.

In fact, ECMC garnished Bruner-Halteman's wages 37 times AFTER she filed for bankruptcy--a clear violation of the law. Moreover, ECMC had no reasonable excuse for its misbehavior. In fact, ECMC refunded the wages it garnished on 17 occasions but kept on garnishing this poor woman's wages. Indeed, the garnishments did not stop until Bruner-Halteman  filed a lawsuit for damages in the bankruptcy court.

The bankruptcy court held a three-day trial on Bruner-Haltman's claims and heard plenty of evidence about the stress Bruner-Halteman experienced due to ECMC's illegal garnishments.  On April 8, 2016, the court awarded her actual damages of  about $8,000, attorney fees, and $74,000 in punitive damages.

Here is how the bankruptcy judge summarized ECMC's conduct:

ECMC's systematic, knowing, and willful disregard of the automatic stay and the protections afforded a debtor by the bankruptcy system was particularly egregious and offends the integrity of the the bankruptcy process. . . The indifference shown by ECMC to the Plaintiff and the bankruptcy process is gravely disturbing.

The court was particularly offended by the fact that ECMC repeatedly refunded the amounts it garnished but did not stop the garnishment process. "The callousness of the refund process is particularly rattling," the court wrote.

"In order to process a refund," the court noted, "an ECMC employee had to make the determination that the debtor had an active bankruptcy case, but that did nothing to convince ECMC that it should be cancelling the wage garnishments . . ." Instead, ECMC processed the refunds "at whatever pace it chose" while Bruner-Halteman "was doing everything she could to make ends meet."

At the conclusion of its opinion, the court summarized ECMC's behavior as follows:

A sophisticated creditor, ECMC, active in many cases in this district and across the country, decided that it could continue to garnish a debtor's wages with full knowledge that she was in a pending bankruptcy case. The Plaintiff, a woman who suffers from a severe medical condition, was hurt in the process. She was deprived of the full use of her paycheck. She incurred significant attorneys' fees in trying to fix the situation. A garnishment of a few hundred dollars may not be much to everyone, but to Kristin Bruner-Halteman, it meant a lot.

I will make just two comments about ECMC's merciless and cruel behavior in the Bruner-Halteman case. First, $74,000 might be a significant punitive-damages award for some organizations, but 74 grand is peanuts to ECMC.  After all, the Century Foundation reported recently that ECMC, a nonprofit organization, has $1 billion in cash and unrestricted assets. A punitive damages award of a million dollars would have been more appropriate.

Second, Ms. Bruner-Halteman was not awarded damages for ECMC's outlaw conduct until April 8, 2016, almost exactly four years after ECMC's first  wrongful garnishment.  Obviously, ECMC knows how to stretch out the litigatin process  to wear down its adversaries.

ECMC's name has appeared as a named party in more than 500 court decisions. A little dust-up like the one it had with Bruner-Haltemann is simply the price of doing business in the dirty commerce of harassing student-loan defaulters. And you can bet no one at ECMC missed a meal or lost any sleep because of the Bruner-Halteman case.

Perhaps Senator Elizabeth Warren, who publicly bemoans the excesses of the student loan industry, should hold Senate hearings and ask ECMC's CEO a few questions. Questions like: How much do ECMC executives pay themselves? How did ECMC accumulate $1 billion in unrestricted assets? And who is paying ECMC's attorney fees for hounding all those American student-loan borrowers--millions of whom, like Bruner-Halteman, are living "on the ragged edge"?

References

Bruner-Halteman v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, Case No. 12-324-HDH-13, ADV. No. 14-03041 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 2016).

Robert Shireman and Tariq Habash. Have Student Loan Guaranty Agencies Lost Their Way? The Century Foundation, September 29, 2016. Accessible at https://tcf.org/content/report/student-loan-guaranty-agencies-lost-way/

A Kansas bankruptcy court discharged all the accrued interest on a married couple's student loans: Murray v. ECMC

Do you remember political consultant James Carville's famous line during the 1992 presidential campaign? "It's the economy, stupid," Carville supposedly observed. That eloquently simple remark became Bill Clinton's distilled campaign message and helped propel him into the presidency.

Something similar might be said about the student-loan crisis: "It's the interest, stupid." In fact, for many Americans, it is the interest and penalties on their student loans--not the amount they borrowed--which is causing them so much financial distress.

The Remarkable case of Murray v. Educational Credit Management Corporation

This truth is starkly illustrated in the case of Murray v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, which was decided last December by a Kansas bankruptcy judge.  At the time they filed for bankruptcy, Alan and Catherine Murray owed $311,000 in student-loan debt, even though they had only borrowed about $77,000. Thus 75 percent of their total debt represented interest on their loans, which had accrued over almost 20 years at an annual rate of 9 percent.

As Judge Dale Somers explained in his ruling on the case, the Murrays had taken out 31 student loans back in the 1990s to obtain bachelor's degrees and master's degrees. In 1996, when they consolidated their loans, they only owed a total of $77,524.

Over the years, the Murrays made loan payments when they could, which totaled $54,000--more than half the amount they borrowed. Nevertheless, they entered into several forbearance agreements that allowed them to skip payments; and they also signed up for income-driven repayment plans that reduced the amount of their monthly payments. Meanwhile, interest on their debt continued to accrue. By the the time the Murrays filed for bankruptcy in 2014, their $77,000 debt had grown to almost a third of a million dollars.

The Murrays' combined income was substantial--about $95,000. Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC), the creditor in the case, argued that the Murrays had enough discretionary income to make significant loan payments in an income-driven repayment plan.  In fact, under such a plan, their monthly loan payments would be less than $1,000 a month,

But Judge Somers disagreed. Interest on the Murrays' debt was accruing at the rate of $65 a day, Judge Somers pointed out--about $2,000 a month. Clearly, the couple would never pay off their loan under ECMC's proposed repayment plan. Instead,  their debt would grow larger with each passing month.

On the other hand, in Judge Somers' view, the Murrays had sufficient income to pay off the principle of their loan and still maintain a minimal standard of living. Thus, he crafted a remarkably sensible ruling whereby the interest on the Murrays' debt was discharged but not the principle. The Murrays are still obligated to pay the $77,000 they borrowed back in the 1990s plus future interest on this amount, which would begin accruing at the rate of 9 percent commencing on the date of the court's judgment.

Judge Somers Points the Way to Sensible Student-Debt Relief

In my view, Judge Somers' decision in the Murray case is a sensible way to address the student debt crisis.  Eight million people have defaulted on their loans, and 5.6 million more are making token payments under income-driven repayment plans that are often not large enough to cover accruing interest. Millions of Americans have obtained loan deferments that allow them to skip their loan payments; but these people--like the Murrays--are seeing their loan balances grow each month as interest accrues.

Judge Somers' decision doesn't solve the student-loan crisis in its entirety, but it is a good solution for millions of people whose loan balances have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled due to accrued interest, penalties, and fees.

Obviously, Judge Somers' solution should only be offered to people who dealt with their loans in good faith.  Judge Somers specifically ruled that the Murrays  had acted in good faith regarding their loans. In fact, they paid back about 70 percent of the amount they borrowed.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, ECMC appealed the Murray decision, hoping to overturn it. Nevertheless, let us take heart from the fact that a Kansas bankruptcy judge reviewed a married couple's financial disaster and crafted a fair and humane solution.


References

Murray v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, Case No. 14-22253, ADV. No. 15-6099, 2016 Banrk. LEXIS 4229 (Bankr. D. Kansas, December 8, 2016).

Department of Education inflated student-loan repayment rates for nearly every school and college in the United States! Playing for Time

The Wall Street Journal published a story a few days ago that is truly shocking.  Based on WSJ's analysis, the Department of Education has inflated student-loan repayment rates for 99.8% of all colleges, universities, and trade schools in the United States.

Earlier this month, DOE acknowledged that a "coding error" had caused the Department to mistakenly under report the student-loan default rates at many schools and colleges. But the magnitude of the error wasn't generally known until the Journal published its own analysis.

According to WSJ, at least half the students who attended more than a thousand colleges and trade schools had either defaulted on their student loans within 7 years of beginning repayment or failed to pay down even one dollar of their student loan debt.

This news is shocking, but not surprising. DOE has been misleading the public for years about  student-loan default rates.  Last autumn, for example, DOE reported a 3-year default rate of about 10 percent, a slight decrease from the previous year. But that figure did not take into account the people who had obtained forbearances or deferments and weren't making payments.  The five-year default rate for a  recent cohort of  student debtors is more than double DOE's three-year rate: 28 percent.


And last September, DOE mislead the public again. The Department  identified 477 schools where more than half the students had defaulted or failed to pay down their loan balances 7 years into repayment. But we now know the figure is more than double that number: 1029.

The implications of this new data are staggering. Obviously, the federal student-loan program is a train wreck. Millions of people have student loans they will never pay back. Eight million have defaulted and millions more are making payments so low that their loan balances are growing due to accruing interest.

Several large for-profit colleges have closed under allegations of fraud.  Corinthian Colleges and ITT together have a half million former students. DeVry, which just reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, has a total of more than a quarter of a million students who took out federal loans to finance their studies. Accumulated debt for DeVry students alone is more than $8 billion.

Like the inmate musicians of Auschwitz, DOE's response to this calamity has been to play for time. It has encouraged millions of people to sign up for income-drive repayment plans (IDRs) under terms such that IDR participants will never pay off their loans.  And DOE has set up a cumbersome procedure whereby students who believe they were defrauded by a college can apply to have their student loans forgiven.

But there is only one way out of this nightmare: bankruptcy relief. Ultimately Congress will have to repeal the "undue hardship" provision in the Bankruptcy Code, which has made it virtually impossible for overburdened student debtors to discharge their loans in bankruptcy.

Until that happens, President Trump's Department of Education should modify its harsh stance toward bankrupt student loan debtors. DOE must stop insisting that every bankrupt student borrower should be pushed into an IDR that stretches loan payment periods out for 20 or 25 years.

Student loan debtors who are honest and broke should be able to discharge their student loans in the bankruptcy courts. Within a couple of years that simple truth will be apparent to everyone. Why not start now to relieve the suffering of millions of Americans who got in over their heads with student loans and can't pay them back?

And let's not sell the Trump administration short. Liberals have assumed that Donald Trump will protect the for-profit colleges because of his history with Trump University. But I am not so sure. President Trump knows how to read a financial statement and he understands the value of bankruptcy. He might just do the right thing and turn this calamity over to the federal bankruptcy courts. 

Playing for Time

References

Andrea Fuller. Student Debt Payback Far Worse Than Believed. Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2017.

Amazon partners with Wells Fargo to peddle private student loans: Say it ain't so, Jeff Bezos

Amazon announced recently that it is partnering with Wells Fargo in the private student-loan business. The plan is for Wells Fargo to offer a slightly discounted interest rate to Amazon Prime Student members on Wells Fargo's private student loans.

 I was sorry to get this news. More than 50 years ago, American businesses discovered that they could rake in more cash from loaning money to their customers than from selling products. Prior to filing bankruptcy, for example, General Motors generated more profits from GMAC, its lending arm, than it did from selling cars.

In fact, the common joke at the time was that GM was not a car manufacturing company; it was a bank that happened to sell cars. And of course that slight change in focus from building quality automobiles to lending money at interest partly explains why GM went bankrupt.

Amazon already sells just about everything in the world. I recently purchased a couple of bags of wood chips for my electric smoker from Amazon; and I bought them cheaper than I could have gotten them at my local grocery store. Amazon's success has made Jeff Bezos, its founder, the third richest man in the world. He's worth about $65 billion.

Do Jeff and Amazon really need to get into the student loan business? Doesn't Jeff have enough money already?

But what is wrong with Amazon getting into the private student loan business, you might ask? What makes peddling student loans different from selling books, CDs, and appliances?

At least three things. First, most banks and lenders require student-loan borrowers to obtain a co-signer who will guarantee repayment of the loan. Thus, when Johnny and Sallie take out private student loans, Mom and Pop are also on the hook. In my opinion, it is reprehensible for banks to force students to get parents or relatives to cosign student loans.

Second, private loans generally carry higher interest rates than federal student loans, and they don't provide alternative payment options if a borrower runs into financial trouble and can't make monthly loan payments.  Without exception, people would be better off borrowing in the federal program than the private program.

Private lenders argue that they provide loans to people who need more money than they can borrow through the federal program.  But in my view, people who can't finance their educational program solely through federal loans are in the wrong program.

Finally, the banks managed to get Congress to revise the Bankruptcy Code in 2005 to make private loans as difficult to discharge in bankruptcy as federal loans. Senator Joe Biden was the chief architect of that sweetheart deal for the banks.

So if you take out a student loan from Wells Fargo and suffer a financial catastrophe, you will find it virtually impossible to discharge your Wells Fargo loan in bankruptcy. This is another good reason not to take out a private student loan.

In sum, the private student loan business is a sleazy industry. And so I ask again: Jeff Bezos, don't you have enough money already? Does Amazon really need to associate itself with the unsavory commerce in private student loans?

Jeff Bezos: Say it ain't so, Jeff

References

Ann Carne. Student Loan Co-Signers Face Tangled Path to a Release. New York Times, July 10, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/your-money/student-loan-co-signers-face-a-tangled-path-to-a-release.html

Karen Silke Carty. 7 Reasons GM is Headed to Bankruptcy. ABC News. Accessible at http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7721675&page=1

Annamaria Andriotis. Amazon tiptoes into the banking business through student loans. Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2016. Accessible at http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-tip-toes-into-banking-business-1469093403

Sirota, David. Joe Biden Backed Bills to Make It Harder For Americans To Reduce Their Student Debt. International Business Times, September 15 , 2015. Accessible: http://www.ibtimes.com/joe-biden-backed-bills-make-it-harder-americans-reduce-their-student-debt-2094664

More than a third of college graduates say they would not have attended college had they known what it would cost: Buyer's Remorse

Jessica Dickler reported recently on a survey of college graduates conducted by Citizens Bank. According to Dickler, the survey found that 36 percent of the students surveyed said they would not have attended college had they known what it would cost them. And half said they regretted the amount of indebtedness they incurred to get their college degrees.

Even more startling, the survey found that 60 percent of college graduates had no idea when their loans would be paid off and a third didn't know the interest rate they were paying.

In addition, the same survey found that recent graduates are devoting about 20 percent of their salaries to student-loan payments and that most recent graduates expect to be paying on their student loans until they are in their 40s.  As a consequence, survey respondents reported, they have limited amounts of money to spend on travel, housing, eating out, and entertainment.

I wonder if Citizens Bank will rethink its student-loan policy based on the results of its survey. It was Citizens, you may recall, that loaned $161,000 to Lorelei Decena so she could attend an unaccredited medical school in Africa. Decena successfully discharged her debt to Citizens based on the fact that the school she attended was not on the U.S. Department of Education's approved list of schools

Do you suppose Decena took Citizens' survey? If so, was she was one of the 36 percent who said they regretted their college experience?

References

Decena v. Citizens Bank, 549 B.R. 11 (Bankr. E.D.N.Y. 2016).

Jessica Dickler. Buyer's College buyer's remorse is real. CNBC News, April 7, 2016. Accessible at http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/07/college-buyers-remorse-is-real.html

Jessica Dickler. College costs are out of control. CNBc News, July 16, 2016. Accessible at http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/12/college-costs-are-out-of-control.html

Citizens Bank. Millennial College Graduates with Student Loans Now Spending Nearly One-Fifth of Their Annual Salaries on Student Loan Repayments. April 7, 2016. Accessible at http://investor.citizensbank.com/about-us/newsroom/latest-news/2016/2016-04-07-140336028.aspx

The Department of Education almost always fights bankruptcy relief for distressed college-loan borrowers--even when it pointless to do so: You'll never get out of this world alive.

I'll never get out of this world alive.

Hank Williams

Last July, Lynn Mahaffie, Deputy Secretary of Education, issued an insincere letter regarding the Department of Education's position concerning bankruptcy relief for college-loan debtors.

In that letter, Mahaffie outlined when DOE would not oppose bankruptcy relief for student-loan borrowers. She listed eleven factors to consider when determining when DOE would agree to permit a bankrupt debtor to discharge student loans in a bankruptcy court. Besides, Mahadffie said the Department would not oppose a bankruptcy discharge if it would not make economic sense to fight a student-loan borrower's petition for relief.

But in fact, Mahaffie wasn't telling the truth. Bankruptcy court opinions decided after Mahaffie wrote her letter show that DOE opposes bankruptcy relief for almost everyone--even when it is evident a debtor will never repay his or her college loans.

Let's review Kelly v. U.S. Department of Education, decided less than two months ago. Cynthia Kelly, a woman in her sixties, filed for bankruptcy in August 2014. At the time of her filing, Kelly had accumulated $160,000 in college-loan debt; and she had had no steady employment for almost 10 years. In fact, she was receiving nearly $200 a month from the local Department of Social Services in food assistance.

Before filing, Kelly was approved for an "Income-Contingent Repayment Plan" (ICRP) that reduced her monthly student-loan payment obligation to zero because her income was so low. Based on her employment history, it seems highly unlikely that Kelly will ever be required to pay a single penny on her student loans under her ICRP because she will probably live at the poverty level for the rest of her life.

Nevertheless, the Department of Education opposed Kelly's bankruptcy application to discharge her student loans, and Judge David Warren, a North Carolina bankruptcy judge, refused to release her from the debt. In the judge's view, Kelly failed the second prong of the Brunner "undue hardship" test because she could not show "additional circumstances" that precluded her from paying back her loans in the future.

Indeed, Judge Warren was totally unsympathetic to Ms. Kelly's situation.  The judge pointed out that Kelly had taken out student loans over a period of 40 years and had paid almost none of it back (less than $2,300).  Moreover, she had left a secure job with a pharmaceutical company in 2004 to do community service work and had never had steady employment since that time. Although Kelly argued that she had made diligent efforts to find remunerative work, Judge Warren ruled that there was no evidence that she had ever "pounded the payment" to find a job.

Judge Warren pointed out that Kelly appeared to be in good health and was well educated, having both a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a doctorate. He seemed offended by the fact that a highly educated person was getting food assistance.  Kelly's "lack of desire and motivation is an insult to those similarly situated," the judge observed, "especially to those lacking the gift of an education." In the judge's opinion, this insult was further compounded "by [Kelly's] complacent acceptance of welfare . . . "

I fully agree with Judge Warren that Kelly is not an attractive candidate for bankruptcy relief.  As the judge pointed out, Kelly took out student loans for nearly 40 years to obtain a lot of post-secondary education. Yet, she chose to live a "voluntary lifestyle" of community service rather than make reasonable efforts to maximize her income.

But let's face it. Ms. Kelly (or Dr. Kelly) will never pay off $160,000 in student loans. Her ICRP requires her to pay nothing due to her poverty-level income. It is totally unrealistic to believe that a woman in her sixties who hasn't held a steady job in ten years will obtain a well-paying job in today's economy.

Moreover, the colleges and universities that took Ms. Kelly's tuition money over a forty-year period bear a good deal of the blame for the situation Kelly is in now. According to Judge Warren, Kelly enrolled at multiple institutions, including Stone School, University of New Haven, Southern New Hampshire University, Spelman College, Drew University, South New Hampshire University, University of Mount Olive, and Shaw University.

Perhaps Kelly is not deserving of bankruptcy relief, but denying her that relief will not get the taxpayers' money back. The Department of Education would be more honest with taxpayers if it allowed people in Kelly's position to shed their debt in a bankruptcy court and then took steps to prevent colleges all over the United States from enrolling students in programs that will never pay off financially.

But that will never happen because the colleges can't survive without federal student-aid money, including money they get from admitting students to programs that have no economic benefit for the people who complete them.

References

Kelly v. U.S. Department of Education, 548 B.R. 99 (Bankr. E.D.N.C. 2016).

Lynn Mahaffie, Undue Hardship Discharge of Title IV Loans in Bankruptcy Adversary Proceedings. CL ID: GEN 15-13, July 7, 2015.

The Department of Education almost always fights bankruptcy relief for distressed college-loan borrowers--even when it pointless to do so: You'll never get out of this world alive.

I'll never get out of this world alive.

Hank Williams

Last July, Lynn Mahaffie, Deputy Secretary of Education, issued an insincere letter regarding the Department of Education's position concerning bankruptcy relief for college-loan debtors.

In that letter, Mahaffie outlined when DOE would not oppose bankruptcy relief for student-loan borrowers. She listed eleven factors to consider when determining when DOE would agree to permit a bankrupt debtor to discharge student loans in a bankruptcy court. Mahadffie said the Department would not oppose a bankruptcy discharge if it would not make economic sense to fight a student-loan borrower's petition for relief.

But in fact, Mahaffie wasn't telling the truth. Bankruptcy court opinions decided after Mahaffie wrote her letter show that DOE opposes bankruptcy relief for almost everyone--even when it is apparent a debtor will never repay his or her college loans.

Let's review Kelly v. U.S. Department of Education, decided less than two months ago. Cynthia Kelly, a woman in her sixties, filed for bankruptcy in August 2014. At the time of her filing, Kelly had accumulated $160,000 in college-loan debt; and she had had no steady employment for almost 10 years. In fact, she was receiving nearly $200 a month from the local Department of Social Services in food assistance.

Before filing, Kelly was approved for an "Income-Contingent Repayment Plan" (ICRP) that reduced her monthly student-loan payment obligation to zero because her income was so low. Based on her employment history, it seems highly unlikely that Kelly will ever be required to pay a single penny on her student loans under her ICRP because she will probably live at the poverty level for the rest of her life.

Nevertheless, the Department of Education opposed Kelly's bankruptcy application to discharge her student loans, and Judge David Warren, a North Carolina bankruptcy judge, refused to release her from the debt. In the judge's view, Kelly failed the second prong of the Brunner "undue hardship" test because she could not show "additional circumstances" that precluded her from paying back her loans in the future.

Indeed, Judge Warren was totally unsympathetic to Ms. Kelly's situation.  The judge pointed out that Kelly had taken out student loans over a period of 40 years and had paid almost none of it back (less than $2,300).  Moreover, she had left a secure job with a pharmaceutical company in 2004 to do community service work and had never had steady employment since that time. Although Kelly argued that she had made diligent efforts to find remunerative work, Judge Warren ruled that there was no evidence that she had ever "pounded the payment" to find a job.

Judge Warren pointed out that Kelly appeared to be in good health and was well educated, having a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a doctorate. He seemed offended by the fact that a highly educated person was getting food assistance.  Kelly's "lack of desire and motivation is an insult to those similarly situated," the judge observed, "especially to those lacking the gift of an education." In the judge's opinion, this insult was further compounded "by [Kelly's] complacent acceptance of welfare . . . "

I fully agree with Judge Warren that Kelly is not an attractive candidate for bankruptcy relief.  As the judge pointed out, Kelly took out student loans for nearly 40 years to obtain a lot of post-secondary education. Yet, she chose to live a "voluntary lifestyle" of community service rather than make reasonable efforts to maximize her income.

But let's face it. Ms. Kelly (or Dr. Kelly) will never pay off $160,000 in student loans. Her ICRP requires her to pay nothing due to her poverty-level income. It is totally unrealistic to believe that a woman in her sixties who hasn't held a steady job in ten years will obtain a well-paying job in today's economy.

Moreover, the colleges and universities that took Ms. Kelly's tuition money over a forty-year period bear a good deal of the blame for the situation Kelly is in now. According to Judge Warren, Kelly enrolled at multiple institutions, including Stone School, University of New Haven, Southern New Hampshire University, Spelman College, Drew University, South New Hampshire University, University of Mount Olive, and Shaw University.

Perhaps Kelly is not deserving of bankruptcy relief, but denying her that relief will not get the taxpayers' money back. The Department of Education would be more honest with taxpayers if it allowed people in Kelly's position to shed their debt in a bankruptcy court and then took steps to prevent colleges all over the United States from enrolling students in programs that will never pay off financially.

But that will never happen because the colleges can't survive without federal student-aid money, including money they get from admitting students to programs that have no economic benefit for the people who complete them.

References

Kelly v. U.S. Department of Education, 548 B.R. 99 (Bankr. E.D.N.C. 2016).

Lynn Mahaffie, Undue Hardship Discharge of Title IV Loans in Bankruptcy Adversary Proceedings. CL ID: GEN 15-13, July 7, 2015.

Vermont lawmakers urge Congress to lift bankruptcy restrictions for distressed college-loan borrowers: Bernie Sanders, here's your cue!

Earlier this week, the Vermont House of Representatives adopted a resolution urging Congress to allow distressed student-loan borrowers to file for bankruptcy without restriction. In effect, the Vermont lawmakers asked Congress to repeal the "undue hardship" provision of the Bankruptcy Code.

The measure had broad support among Vermont legislators.  The resolution was sponsored by more than 70 of  the Vermont House's 150 representatives.

This is an amazing development. Everyone knows the federal student loan program is in crisis and that millions of college-loan borrowers are burdened by massive debt they can't pay back. Congress won't do anything about it because our federal legislators have been bought off by the college industry and the banks. Now we have a state legislative body asking for bankruptcy relief.

Joint House Resolution 27, as the Vermont resolution is titled, is remarkable for its clarity.  As the resolution stated: "27 million borrowers are either in default or some other form of loan repayment delinquency . . . "  Moreover, the Vermont legislators pointed out, plans to reduce interest rates or restructure the student loan program might be helpful to future borrowers, but these proposals do nothing to help people who are suffering right now.

I hope other state legislatures across the United States will follow the lead of the Vermont House of Representatives and call for the elimination of bankruptcy restrictions for desperate college-loan borrowers.  Multiple state-level legislative resolutions would put huge pressure on Congress to quit doing the bidding of the college industry and amend the Bankruptcy Code.

And here is an opening for Bernie Sanders.  If he would endorse Joint House Resolution 27 and call for a reform of the Bankruptcy Code, he would attract even more voters.  At the very least, Bernie's endorsement might force Hillary Clinton to endorse Resolution 27 as well.  So far, her only plan for reforming the federal student loan program is to shovel more money toward the inefficient, corrupt, and venal higher education industry.

Hooray for the state legislators in Vermont.  Bernie, please jump on board. The time for action is now.

Vermont lawmakers urge Congress to lift restrictions on bankruptcy for student-loan borrowers

References

Micahel Bielawski. Vermont House asks Congress to let student-loan borrowers file for bankruptcy. VermongtWatchdog.org, May 3, 2016.  Accessible at http://watchdog.org/264079/legislature-requests-student-debt-relief-bankruptcy/

Law graduates can discharge bar-exam loans in bankruptcy but not student loans to go to law school

Lesley Campbell graduated from Pace University School of Law in 2009, but she didn't pass the bar exam. According to the Wall Street Journal, her total student-loan debt is now nearly $300,000.

After obtaining her JD degree, Campbell  took a secretarial job that paid $49,000 a year; and she filed for bankruptcy in 2014. Although she did not discharge her student loans, a bankruptcy judge did allow her to discharge a $15,000 loan she obtained from Citibank to pay for her bar review course.

A few brief comments on Ms. Campbell's case. First, people who take on $300,000 in student-loan debt to go to law school and don't pass the bar exam obviously suffer a financial catastrophe. Unless they obtain bankruptcy relief, most will never recover. In other words, for these people, going to law school destroyed their financial future instead of making it brighter.

Second, I was amazed by how much it costs just to take the bar-exam review course--$15,000! When I went to law school (a long time ago, I admit), the bar review course cost only $600, which I paid in installments with money I made working as a part-time law clerk. If I were graduating from law school today, I would be forced to take out a sizable loan just to prepare for my bar exam.

Finally, I was struck by the heartlessness of the online comments that followed the Wall Street Journal article about Ms. Campbell. One person commented that a person who would borrow $300,000 to attend law school obviously isn't smart enough to pass the bar.

As many commentators have written, a bleak job market and the skyrocketing cost of law-school tuition have combined to created a crisis in the legal profession.On average, people leave law school with $140,000 in student-loan debt only to enter an economy that only needs one lawyer for every two law-school graduates.

Greedy law schools and the American Bar Association created this crisis. The law schools set tuition levels far too high, and the ABA allowed law schools to admit far too many students.  As a result, thousands of law-school graduates share Leslie Campbell's predicament-- an onerous level of student-loan debt and no law job.

The ABA and the law schools have a moral obligation to advocate for reforms in the Bankruptcy Code that will allow impoverished law-school graduates to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. But we haven't heard a peep out of the law schools or the ABA regarding bankruptcy reform for student-loan debtors.

References

Katy Stech. Judge Says Bankrupt Law Grads Can Cancel Bar Loans. Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2016.  Accessible at http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-says-bankrupt-law-grads-can-cancel-bar-loans-1458941328

If I Had a Hammer! With great courage, distressed student-loan debtors all over America are going into the bankruptcy courts and petitioning for justice

If I had a hammer,

I'd hammer in the morning,
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

Peter, Paul & Mary

Our government has committed a grave injustice on working Americans--young and old--by dispensing student-money recklessly to millions of people who accepted the money in good faith in the hope that they could use their student-loan funds to educate themselves and have better lives.

In effect, the government has engaged in predatory lending--something you and I would go to jail for. It has spewed billions of dollars around the United States for the benefit of sleazy colleges--public, private, and for-profit--knowing that nearly half the people who got the loan dollars would not be able to pay off their student loans. And this money got sucked up by the college industry. 

After lending the money like a benevolent grandmother giving out Christmas checks to her grandkids, the government then morphed into a heartless monster. In fact, all three branches of our federal government have conspired to grind student-loan debtors into the dust.

• Congress passed laws making it extremely difficult for people to discharge their student-loan debt in bankruptcy.

• Congress enacted legislation that wiped out the statute of limitations for collection lawsuits against student-loan debtors--essentially destroying a key principle of the common law of equity.

• The Department of Education allows for-profit colleges to insert "you can't sue me" clauses in their college-admissions materials.

• The Supreme Court, an assembly of nine old geezers, upheld a federal law that allows the Department of Education to garnish Social Security checks of elderly people who defaulted on their student loans.

More than 40 million people carry student-loan debt, and 20 million can't pay it back. They are trapped like rats while the government and its collection agencies conspire to drive student-loan debtors out of the economy and out of the middle class into a dark world of hopelessness.  

Our government leaders pretend to be sympathetic. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Charles Schumer coo soothingly about lower interest rates. President Obama spins out one long-term repayment plan after another.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issues press releases announcing lower default rates, knowing that DOE is cooking the books.

This scheme--driven by the greed and indifference of higher-education leaders--cries out for justice, for a return to common decency.

And a few people, like Peter Finch's character in the movie Network, have stood up and said, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore."  Going into the bankruptcy courts, often without attorneys, a few intrepid souls have applied to have their student loans discharged in bankruptcy. Not all of them have been successful, but all have shown great courage.

So in this posting, I pay tribute to the grit and the bravery of the people who filed adversary actions in the bankruptcy courts to throw off their student-loan debt:

Alethea Lamento, single mother of two, who was working full time but who was forced to live with relatives because she did not make enough money to house her family. A bankruptcy court discharged her student loans over the objection of the Department of Education.

Lamento v. U.S. Department of Education, 520 B.R. 667 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio 2014)

George and Melanie Johnson, a married couple with two children who lost their home in foreclosure and who defeated Educational Credit Management Corporation in an adversary proceeding in Kansas. And they did it without a lawyer!

Johnson v. ECMC, Case No. 11-23108, Adv. No. 11-6250 (Bankr. D. Kan. 2015)

Bradley Myhre, a quadriplegic working full time but did not make enough money to support himself because he was required to pay a fulltime caregiver just to feed and dress him and transport him back and forth to work. The Department of Education refused to forgive his student loans, but Myhre beat DOE in an adversary proceeding.

Myhre v. U.S. Department of Education, 503 B.R. 698 (Bankr. W.D. Wis. 2013)

Alexandra Acosta-Conniff, an Alabama school teacher and single mother of two, who went into the bankruptcy court without a lawyer and discharged student-loan debt over the opposition of Educational Credit Management Corporation.  

Acosta-Conniff v. ECMC, 536 B.R. 326 (Bankr. M.D. Ala. 2015)

Ronald Joe Johnson, a grandfather in his early 50s who took out student loans in the early 1990s to pursue a college degree he was unable to complete and is now living with his wife on about $2,000 a month. Unfortunately, Johnson did not have a lawyer, and the Department of Education persuaded a bankruptcy judge not to discharge Johnson's student loans. 

Johnson v. U.S. Department of Education, 541 B.R. 759 (N.D. Ala. 2015)

Michael Abney, a single father of two with a record of homelessness who is living on less than $1200 a month, in spite of the fact he is working fulltime as a delivery driver. Acting as his own attorney, he defeated the U.S. Department of Education in a Missouri bankruptcy court.

Abney v. U.S. Department of Education, 540 B.R. 681 (W.D. Mo. 2015)

All these people are heroes, as brave in their own way as the farmers who defied the British army on Concord bridge in 1775, as brave as the heroes of the Alamo, as brave as the Okies who were driven off their farms during the Great Depression and took their families to Oklahoma in search of a better life.

Let us hope these heroes will inspire others to take the brave step of going into the bankruptcy courts to throw off their student-loan debt.  With each pasisng months, the bankruptcy courts are growing more sympathetic.