John L. King, Jr., Secretary of Education, spouts nonsense about financial literacy for student borrowers

John L.  King, Jr., the new Secretary of Education, knows the student-loan program is careening out of control and that millions of people owe billions of dollars they can't pay back.

So what's Secretary King's solution? Financial literacy. We can solve the student-loan crisis, Secretary King apparently believes, if college students are educated to make better financial decisions.

Thus as the nation enters "Financial Capability Month," Secretary King is touting a recent report prepared by the Financial Literacy and Education Commission that outlines how college students can develop better financial management skills.

Interestingly, the report emphasizes the role that colleges and universities can play in enhancing their students' ability to make good decisions about financing their college experiences. And the report highlights financial literacy programs that universities around the nation are offering.

For example, New Mexico State University "held a money management fair to promote games, websites, and outside financial education organizations to students." I'll bet that was fun.

And Louisiana State University, famous for its planned "Lazy River" water feature, created "financial education' handouts called "Financial Basics on the Geaux" and developed "CashCourse quizzes" to evaluate students' financial knowledge.

The Department of Education seems to think that colleges are great places for students to learn financial literacy, including the skills to manage their student loans. After all, as the Financial Literacy and Education Commission pointed out, colleges have an incentive to produce alumni who repay their student loans.

But of course this isn't really true. Colleges and universities have an incentive to maximize their revenues, which means luring tuition-paying students through the door. But higher education institutions have zero incentive to warn potential students that some of their degree programs are a bad financial investment.

And here's an example. Law students who graduated from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego in 2013 had an average student-debt load of $180,000 (among students who borrowed). That was the highest student-debt load of any law school in the United States that year.

Yet Thomas Jefferson's admission standards are quite low. According to a recent report by Law School Transparency, 75 percent of Thomas Jefferson's entering 2014 class had LSAT scores so low that they were at high risk of failing the bar. Twenty-five percent of it 2014 freshman class had LSAT scores so low that they were at extreme risk of failing the bar.

Not surprisingly, Thomas Jefferson's bar pass rates aren't high. Among first-time test takers who sat for the California bar in July 2014, less than half of TJSL graduates (44.7 percent) passed the bar exam.

As Paul Campos wrote in his 2012 book, "[I]t's likely that somewhere around four out of five current law students would be better off if they hadn't gone to law school" (emphasis supplied). And that percentage is surely even higher for people who graduate from TJSL.

Do you think Thomas Jefferson School of Law is telling its entering freshman students that they will probably face job prospects so poor that it makes no sense to borrow $180,000 to get a TJSL degree? Probably not. Thomas Jefferson needs to maximize its revenue by admitting as many law students as it can, even if  a majority of its entering students have LSAT scores so low that they run a high risk of failing the bar exam.

So what's my point? Simply this. The Department of Education is being naive or cruelly cynical to suggest that "financial literacy" can be usefully taught by colleges and universities that have every incentive to attract tuition-paying students and no incentive at all to warn potential students of the risks they run when they take out student loans to enroll in expensive programs that aren't likely to pay off financially.

In short, whether you are contemplating a bachelor's degree in religious studies from an expensive, elite university or a law degree from a mediocre law school, you can't count on the higher education institutions to give you good financial advice. When it comes to acquiring financial literacy, you are largely on your own.

References

Focusing on financial literacy for students. U.S. Department of Education blog site. http://blog.ed.gov/2016/04/ed-focuses-on-financial-literacy-for-students/

Jeff Schmitt, The Leaders in Student Debt. Tipping the Scales, March 31, 2014. Accessible at http://tippingthescales.com/2014/03/which-law-schools-lead-in-student-debt/

Paul Caron. July 2014 California Bar Exam Results. Taxprof blog, December 29, 2014. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/12/july-2014-california-bar-.html

Financial Literacy and Education Commission. Opportunities to Improve Financial Capability and Financial Well-Being of Postsecondary Students. Updated 2016. Accessible at https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/financial-education/Documents/Opportunities%20to%20Improve%20the%20Financial%20Capability%20and%20Financial%20Wellbeing%20of%20Postsecondary%20Students.pdf

Law School Transparency. Reports on law school admission data accessible at http://lawschooltransparency.com/reform/projects/investigations/2015/key-findings/

4.6 million student debtors are in long-term repayment plans, default rates are up, and President Obama's "best friend" is buying University of Phoenix: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

As William Butler Yeats put it, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." Everywhere, we see signs that the federal student-loan program is on the verge of collapse. And when the loan program collapses, so will American higher education.

Here are some portents of the coming disaster:

Student borrowers are enrolling in long-term repayment plans in record numbers

First, the U.S. Department of Education recently announced that 4.6 million student debtors are enrolled in Income-Driven Repayment plans (IDRs) to pay off their college loans. This is a 48 percent increase since December 2014 and a 140 percent increase since December 2013. 

People in IDRs are obligated to pay on their student loans for 20 or even 25 years, and most are making payments so small that their loan balances are going up, not down, due to unpaid accumulating interest. In other words, most people in IDRs will never pay off their college loans.

Yet lenient income-based plans are President Obama's chief strategy for addressing the student-loan crisis. As the DOE blog put it," President Obama has fought hard to make college more affordable and to help borrowers keep their student loan payments manageable." And thanks to those efforts, DOE continues, students in the new IDRs never have to pay more than 10 percent of their monthly income on your federal student loans."   Indeed, borrowers who are  "temporarily unemployed" don't have to pay anything. "After all, as DOE cheerily pointed out, "10 percent of zero dollars is zero dollars."

But of course, 20-year and 25-year repayment plans are crazy, especially when we consider that most people don't sign up for these plans until their backs are against the wall. Remember Brenda Butler, who entered a 25-year repayment plan 20 years after graduating from college? She won't be finished with her student loans until 2037, 42 years after acquiring her degree!

The Feds are garnishing wages and Social Security Checks, and default rates are rising

Meanwhile, the government garnished $176 million in wages from student-loan defaulters during the last three months of 2015. And the government garnishes Social Security checks of 155,000 elderly student-loan defaulters. 

And despite governmental assurances to the contrary, student-loan default rates are rising. According to a recent analysis by Jason Deslisle, 20 percent of all borrowers with loans due are in default. A Brookings Institution report noted that almost half of  a recent cohort of student borrowers who attended for-profit colleges defaulted within 5 years

And let's not forget the nine million people in the repayment phase of their loans who aren't making payments because they've obtained economic hardship deferments or some other deferment from making loan payments.  Those folks are counted as defaulters, but in reality, most of them will never pay back their loans. 

Law schools are in trouble

And then there are the law schools, some of which are in real trouble. Over the last few years, law schools began behaving like pirates, raising tuition rates to insane levels even as the market for lawyers imploded. Now they are seeing  a 20 percent decline in enrollment applications; and many have lowered their admission standards just to get warm bodies in their classrooms. A typical law student now graduates with $140,000 in debt; and many have almost no prospect of getting jobs in the legal field.

The for-profit college sector: The barbarians are at the gates

Finally, in the private sector, the barbarians are at the gates. Corinthian College, which had 350,000 students or former students as of last year, filed for bankruptcy; and thousands of its victims have filed claims to have their student loans forgiven. The Department of Education brokered a sale of some Corinthian campuses to a company affiliated with Educational Credit Management Corporation, the rapacious college-loan debt collector, just to maintain some semblance of order in the chaos of the Corinthian collapse.

Apollo Education Group, owner of the University of Phoenix, is in real trouble. Enrollments at UP dropped from a a peak of 475,000 in 2010 to less than half that number in 2015. Apollo's stock, which once sold for more than $80 a share, is now trading below 8 bucks.

Apollo is in negotiations to sell out to a group of private equity firms, including Visteria Group. Visteria was founded by Martin Nesbitt, described as President Obama's "best friend." In fact, Nesbitt was treasurer for both of Obama presidential campaigns; and he heads the Obama Foundation that is planning the Obama Presidential Library. 

If the deal goes through, Tony Miller, former Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama administration and Martin Nesbitt's business partner will become Apollo Education Group's new Board Chairman.  Very cozy!

"The ceremony of innocence is drowned."

To borrow a phrase from Yeats, "The ceremony of innocence is drowned" in American higher education.  Colleges and universities were once honored as the guardians of our civilization's ideals, the places where young people came to grow and learn, and to develop the civic and moral values that are indispensable to maintaining a healthy and vibrant society.

No more.  Arrogant college presidents, greedy profiteers, and mindless bureaucrats now control our once beloved universities. The best of these characters "lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." 

All of this craziness is paid for by federal student-loan money. And millions of college-loan borrowers are strangling in debt they can never pay off. This cannot go on forever.

President Obama and Martin Nesbitt

Tony Miller, former Deputy Secretary of Education
and soon-to-be Board Chairman of Apollo Education Group

References

Jillian Berman. Americans just had $17 million in wages garnished by the government due to unpaid student loans. Marketwatch.com, March 22, 2016. Accessible at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-government-just-garnished-176-million-in-wages-because-of-unpaid-student-loans-2016-03-21

Ronald J. Hansen. Apollo Education, parent company of University of Phoenix, to go prvate at $1.1 billion deal. Arizona Republic, February 9, 2016. Accessible at http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2016/02/08/apollo-education-to-go-private-in-11b-deal/79998782/

Jason Delisle. @usedgov latest data out today shows student loan defaults just hit another record high, 20% of those w/ loans due. Mhttps://twitter.com/delislealleges/status/710539989256429568

Matt Sessa. Student Aid Posts Updated Reports to FSA Data Center. Department of Education, March 17, 2016. Accessible at https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/7943/3-17_Federal_Student_Aid_Posts_Updated_Reports_to_FSA_Data_Center

Dan Primack. Obama's 'best friend' raises millions for private equity fund. Fortune Magazine, August 11, 2014. Accessible at http://fortune.com/2014/08/11/obamas-best-friend-raises-millions-for-private-equity-fund/

Patricia Cohen and Chad Bray. University of Phoenix Owner, Apollo Education Group, To Be Taken Private. New York Times, February 9, 2016. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/business/dealbook/apollo-education-group-university-of-phoenix-owner-to-be-taken-private.html?

No, You Won't Be Arrested for Falling Behind On Your Student Loans. US. Department of Eduation Official Bog, April, 2016. Accessible at http://blog.ed.gov/2016/04/no-you-wont-be-arrested-for-falling-behind-on-your-student-loans/

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

Hillary dines with George Clooney at a California fundraising dinner. I'd rather eat a baloney sandwich with Bernie Sanders

Yeah and I'll have something to brag about

Yeah, something to brag about in you

Something to Brag About 

Lyrics by Bobby Braddock
Sung by George Jones & Tammy Wynette

An email from the Bernie campaign alerted me to Hillary's upcoming fundraising dinner in San Francisco. George Clooney will be the star attraction at a dinner that will cost up to $350,000 a plate!

Funny I wasn't invited. I'm sure it was just an oversight. Or maybe George is still sore that we didn't invite him to our last Knights of Columbus fish fry at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

This kind of event tells us all we need to know about Hillary Clinton, the racketeer politician who wears frumpy pantsuits and makes speeches to bankers at a quarter million dollars a pop. And she won't release the text of those speeches, even though her sycophantic friend, the New York Times, timidly suggested that she do so.

No, Hillary thinks she is going to be President because she is entitled to it, and it is simply beneath her to even respond to queries about her fundraising activities. She's cozied up to all the right people, gotten money from the likes of Goldman Sachs, and promised the insiders that they'll be taken care of if she takes over the Oval Office. 

Do the Democrats in New Hampshire want her? The Democrats in Utah? The Democrats in Oklahoma, Kansas, or Nebraska? In Michigan, Alaska, Hawaii or Washington? No, they don't; and Hillary doesn't give a damn.

Because the only  people Hillary answers to are arrogant rich oligarchs like George Soros, who donated $8 million to Hillary's Super Pac.

As for me, I am proud to have cast my vote for Bernie Sanders, and I'm still making modest contributions to his campaign. I would rather eat a baloney sandwich from a paper bag with Bernie than dine on caviar and filet mignon with Hillary Clinton and George Clooney.

And whether Bernie ultimately wins or loses, when this election is over, those of us who voted for him can take pride in the fact that we cast our ballots for decency. As George Jones and Tammy Wynette might have put it, "We'll have somethin' to brag about" on inauguration day even if Hillary becomes our next President.

Unemployed Lawyers with Student Loan Debt: The Law Schools Should Be Forced To Bear Part of The Cost of Law School Loans

Recently, I wrote about Anna Alaburda, who sued Thomas Jefferson School of Law, her law school alma mater. Alaburda spent  $150,000 to attend TJSL. After graduating in 2008, she was unable to find a remunerative law job; and her student loan debt grew to $170,000. She claimed she was induced to enroll at Thomas Jefferson by the law school's false assertions that most of its graduates got well-paying legal jobs.

Alaburda's case went to trial, and this week a jury ruled against her.  Alaburda's loss is the latest in a string of defeats by unemployed or underemployed law school graduates who sued their law schools for fraud or misrepresentation.

Some unemployed or underemployed lawyers have filed for bankruptcy to discharge their student loans, but they've had mixed success. Michael Hedlund, a graduate of Willamette Law School, succeeded in getting a partial discharge of his law-school debt, but he endured ten years of litigation before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rendered a decision in his favor in 2013.

More recently, two heavily indebted law-school graduates were denied bankruptcy relief. Mark Tetzlaff, racked up thousands of dollars in debt to pursue post-secondary studies; and he eventually received an MBA and a law degree from Florida Coastal School of Law, a bottom-tier law school. Tetzlaff actually paid off his law school debt, which he was required to do in order to get Florida Coastal to release his transcripts. But he never obtained a good job as an attorney, and he was unable to pay off other student loans. When he filed for bankruptcy in 2012, he owed $260,000 in student-loan debt.

The Eighth Circuit was not sympathetic to Mr. Tetzlaff's plight and refused to discharge his student loans in a decision released last year. And the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.

Likewise, a bankruptcy court in California ruled against Mark Lilly in 2013. Like Mr. Tetzlaff, Mr. Lilly took on a massive amount of student-loan debt, including debt he acquired to obtain an MBA and a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, which is not a top-ranked law school. His request for bankruptcy relief was denied, but he never found work as a lawyer.

This is the tragic reality: the legal job market has imploded, but law schools have not reduced enrollments sufficiently in response to the shrinking demand for lawyers. Law schools continue to pump out far more attorneys than American society needs, and many law schools have lowered their admissions standards just to get students in the door. For people like Mark Tetzlaff and Mark Lilly, who graduated from mediocre law schools, there are virtually no jobs. In California, for example, there are now 2.5 law graduates for every job opening.

Thus far, law graduates have borne most of the suffering created by a shrinking job market, especially graduates who received their degrees from nonprestigious law schools like Florida Coastal, Thomas Jefferson, and McGeorge. On average, law graduates who borrow to finance their studies acquire $140,000 in student-loan debt. Graduates of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where Anna Alaburda obtained her degree, now graduate with an average debt load of $180,000! Many simply can't find jobs that will allow them to pay off their student loans.

In my view, some of the suffering experienced by unemployed law graduates should be shifted to the law schools, which have charged students exorbitant tuition and are graduating more students than our economy can absorb. These schools purport to maintain the highest ethical standards, but in reality, many of them are making admissions decisions based on their revenue needs and not the welfare of their students.

Whether or not they are guilty of misrepresentation, as Ms. Alaburda asserted  against TJSL, many law schools are certainly guilty of behaving contrary to the public interest. Surely, these schools should help their unemployed graduates pay back massive student-loan debt that was acquired to obtain degrees that are virtually worthless.

References

Hedlund v. Educ. Resources Inst., Inc., 718 F.3d 848 (9th Cir. 2013).

Lilly v. Illinois Student Assistance Comm’n, 538 B.R. 45 (Bankr. S.D. Cal. 2013).

Elizabeth Olsen. Law Student Gets Her Day in Court. New York Times, March 6, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/business/dealbook/court-to-hear-suit-accusing-law-school-of-inflating-job-data.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1

Tetzlaff v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 794 F.3d 756 (7th Cir. 2015). Accessible at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1708687.html

Thomas M. Cooley Law School v. Kurzon Strauss, LLP, 759 F.3d 522 (6th Cir. 2014). Accessible at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/14a0139p-06.pdf

Gary Warth. Jury rejects fraud claim against law school. San Diego Union-Tribune, March 24, 2016. Accessible at http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/mar/24/thomas-jefferson-law-school-verdict/

Joshua Wright. The Oversaturated Job Market for Lawyers Continues and On-the-Side Legal Work Grows. EMSI blog, January 10, 2014. Accessible at: http://www.economicmodeling.com/2014/01/10/the-oversatured-job-market-for-lawyers-continues/

Student Loan Bankruptcy and Educational Credit Management Corporation: Who pays the ECMC lawyers?

I know quite a bit about the student loan crisis. After studying both governmental and nongovernmental documents, I know the student-loan default rate is much higher than the government reports. According to the Department of Eduction, the three-year default rate is about 10 percent, but the people who stop paying on their loans is at least 30 percent.  And among people who attended for-profit colleges, the default rate is at least 50 percent.

I also know a lot about college borrowers who try to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. Shedding student loans through bankruptcy is difficult, but over the past three years or so, a number of bankruptcy courts have ruled in favor of college-loan debtors, showing both compassion and common sense.

But I dont' know who pays the lawyers for the student-debt collection agencies that fight student debtors in the bankruptcy courts or how much those lawyers get paid. 

In particular, who paid the lawyers for Educational Credit Management Corporation, which opposed bankruptcy relief for Janet Roth, an elderly woman with chronic health problems who was living on  Social Security income of only  $774 a month?  And ECMC lawyers didn't just fight Ms. Roth in the bankruptcy court, it fought her all the way to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And everybody knew that Jane Roth's income was so low that she would have paid nothing on her student loans even if she lost her case. 

Who paid the ECMC lawyers who appealed a bankruptcy decision in favor of George and Melanie Johnson, a couple with two school-age children who lost their home in a foreclosure proceeding?

And who ultimately paid the tab for ECMC to fight bankruptcy relief for Janice Stevenson, a woman in her 50s with a history of homelessness who was living on only at thousand dollars a month?

A New York Times article reported that ECMC has been accused of ruthless loan-collection tactics, and I would say ruthless is putting it mildly. And take my word for it, ECMC lawyers aren't working for free.

To paraphrase the great Lynyrd Skynyrd, I know a little about student loans and bankruptcy, and baby I can guess the rest. I think the taxpayers are paying  ECMC's lawyers--either directly or indirectly. 

In a letter issued last July, Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education Lynne Mahaffie wrote that student-loan debt collectors should take cost into account when deciding when to oppose bankruptcy discharge for distressed college-loan borrowers. But if ECMC is absorbing the cost of attorney fees to fight Jane Roth, Janice Stevenson, and Mr. and Mrs.Johnson, why would the Department of Education care what ECMC is spending in its collection efforts? 

Certainly ECMC wasn't taking cost into account when it dragged Janet Roth through the federal courts for several years.  There could have been no monetary gain to the taxpayers in fighting bankruptcy relief for Ms. Roth.

In the months to come, we will see if DOE really meant it when it authorized Mahaffie to say that DOE and its student-loan debt collectors would not fight bankruptcy discharge of student loans when it is not cost effective to do so.

My guess is this. ECMC will continue harassing student-loan debtors in the bankruptcy courts as long as its lawyers get paid for doing so.  So if Lynn Mahaffie really meant what she said in that 2015 letter, DOE needs to change the system whereby ECMC lawyers get rich hounding people like Jane Roth, Janice Stevenson, and George and Melanie Johnson.

References

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

Lynn Mahaffie. Undue Hardship Discharge of Title IV Loans in Bankruptcy Adversary Proceedings, July 7, 2015, GEN 15-13.  Accesible at https://ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN1513.pdf

Roth v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, 490 B.R. 908 (9th Cir. BAP 2013). Accessible at http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/bap/2013/04/16/RothV%20ECMC%20opinion-FINAL%20AZ-11-1233.pdf