Misinformation: Some commentators inaccurately say that student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy

Last month, Mises Institute, an Austrian think tank, posted an interesting article on the American student-loan crisis. For the most part, the article contains interesting and accurate information; but it also said student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy--which is not true.

The Mises Institute article focuses on student-loan debt owed by older Americans, As author Andrew Moran explained, these debts fall into two categories: student loans that seniors take out to finance their own education and Parent PLUS loans, which are loans older Americans take out for their children's postsecondary studies.

"It is the Parent PLUS program that seems to be wreaking the most havoc on older Americans," Moran wrote. These loans are marketed to parents of college students and carry a fixed interest rate of 7.67 percent plus an origination fee equal to 4.2 percent of the loan. As Moran noted, there is no cap on the amount of money parents can borrow through Parent PLUS.

American seniors who fall behind on their student-loan payments face serious consequences. As Moran reported, the federal government can seize income-tax refunds from senior Americans who default on their student loans (either their own loans or the loans they took out for their children). The feds can also garnish Social Security checks. True enough.

Moran then went on to state that student-loan debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. But this is not accurate. The Bankruptcy Code states that students  cannot be discharged unless the debtor can show that paying the loans would create an "undue hardship."

It is true that discharging student loans in bankruptcy is very difficult, and the Department of Education or its agents oppose bankruptcy relief in almost every instance. But in recent years, bankruptcy judges have discharged student-loan debt in a number of cases.

For example, in the Abney case, a Missouri bankruptcy judge discharged student loans owed by a man in his 40s who was living near the poverty line and had actually slept in his employer's truck for a time. In the Lamento case, an Ohio judge discharged student loans owed by a 35-year-old, single mother with two children who had taken out loans to get a college degree she had been unable to obtain.

In Kansas, a bankruptcy judge discharged accumulated interest on student loans owed by a married couple in their late 40s, and the decision was upheld on appeal. Later, a second Kansas bankruptcy judge forgave accumulated interest on student loans owed by V icky Jo Metz, a 59-year-old woman who had taken out student loans in the 1990s to attend a community college.

One might argue that isolated decisions by compassionate bankruptcy judges are anomalies, and that the common belief that student loans are nondischargeable is overall still true. But several federal appellate courts have expressed sympathy for distressed student-loan debtors. The Roth decision by the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Court, the Krieger ruling out of the Seventh Circuit, the Fern case from the Eighth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Court, and the Tenth Circuit's Polleys decision all approved bankruptcy relief for overburdened student debtors.

I do not wish to criticize Mr. Moran for the error in his Mises article. The Department of Education has done nothing to dispel the myth that student loans are nondischargeable; and in fact DOE has uniformly opposed bankruptcy relief, even for people in desperate circumstances. In the Myhre case, for example, DOE opposed bankruptcy relief for a quadriplegic who was gainfully employed but not making enough money to pay for the full-time care he needed to feed and dress himself.

And a pattern has emerged for student-loan creditors to assign student loans to Educational Credit Management Corporation, who often steps in to oppose bankruptcy relief after the debtor files for relief. Why? I think it is become ECMC, with its network of lawyers and ample resources for paying attorneys, has become the Department of Education's hired thug to beat down destitute student-loan debtors, who often come to court without attorneys.

So keep reporting on the student-loan crisis, Mr. Moran. You are doing good work. And don't feel bad about the error in the Mises article. The myth that student loans are nondischargeable in bankruptcy has been circulated many times by experts, even by attorneys who should know better.

"Robbery at its finest": Western State Law School May Close in Mid-Semester

Western State College of Law, a nonprofit law school located in California, may shut down soon. If it does, Above the Law reporter Staci Zaretsky observed, it will be the first time an ABA-accredited law school closes its doors in mid-semester.

What's going on? Well, its complicated. Western State is part of Argosy University, which is a nonprofit institution owned by Dream Center Education Holdings, a nonprofit Christian group. Dream Center bought Argosy from Education Management Corporation (EMC), a for-profit entity. EMC, once the second largest for-profit-college operator in the United States, sold out after it ran into trouble over its recruiting tactics.

Dream Center discovered that its purchase was not as profitable as it anticipated. As reported by Stacy Cowley and Erica L. Green of the New York Times, Dream Center expected to make a $30 million profit in the first year. Instead, it suffered a $38 million loss.

Dream Center could not pay all its bills, and a creditor put it into receivership in January. A federal judge in Ohio appointed a receiver, and the receiver wants to sell at least some of Dream Center's holdings.

Then, late last month, the Department of Education announced that it would yank all federal student-aid money from Dream Center, which will strangle all of its educational institutions.  DOE took this action due in part to the fact that Dream Center had not disbursed student aid money to students in a timely manner. According to DOE's letter of February 27, Dream Center failed to distribute more than $16 million in student stipends to Argosy University students, including law students at Western State College of Law. Meanwhile, the DOE letter said, Argosy continued paying its staff and vendors.

Naturally, the announcement that Western State might close in mid-semester, threw students into a panic."[W]e as students are suffering the never-ending consequences physically, emotionally mentally, and spiritually," said Kim Davoodi, a third-year last student. "This is robbery at its finest."

Without question, the precipitous closing of a law school is a disaster for students. But Davoodi may be misinformed about when this alleged robbery occurred. Western State, a third-tier law school, is shockingly expensive. Accord to Law School Transparency, which reports on law schools' costs and outcomes, it will cost an entering first-year student $282,000 to get a law degree from Western State.

Thus, almost all Western State students must borrow prodigious amounts of money to finance their studies. In fact, by Law School Transparency's calculations, a Western State graduate would have to make monthly payment of $3,329 for ten years to pay off this debt. (Of course some students receive tuition discounts, which reduces the amount of student loans they would need.)

Obviously, Western State law graduates must find very good jobs in order to service their student loans. But a law school graduate must pass the state bar exam to become a practicing attorney; and Western State's bar pass rates are abysmal.

How abysmal? Only 51 percent of Western State's first-time takers passed the California bar exam in the summer of 2018. And Western State's bar pass rate is going down. The school's bar pass rate declined by 5 percent from the previous year.

So if a robbery occurred (metaphorically speaking), it took place on the day Western State law students took out their first student loans. It is recklessly irresponsible for a law school to charge students outrageously priced tuition, when only about half of their graduates pass the state bar exam the first time they take it.

A few days ago Western State's Dean Allen K. Easley sent students an email alerting them that the law school was "finalizing plans" to stay open for at least two more weeks. Dean Easley also told student that Argosy's receiver was in "active discussions with a potential suitor interested in acquiring the law school."

Perhaps an investor will buy Western State and keep the law school open awhile longer. But speculation about a buyer for Western State reminds me of a scene from True Grit. Rooster Cogburn (played by Jeff Bridges) and Mattie (played by Hailee Steinfeld) come across a corpse hanging from a rope tied to a tall tree. Cogburn orders Mattie to cut the cadaver down, which she does; and then he slings the carcass on the back of a horse.

Why was he keeping the corpse, Mattie asked. If my recollection of the scene is correct,  Cogburn replied: "A dead body might be worth something."

I know more about farting cows than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. What does AOC know about the student-loan crisis?

Let me begin by saying I recognized global warning a long time ago--before Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born. I lived in Alaska in the early 1980s, and we all saw the glaciers retreating.

The planet is heating up, we observed--not a political statement, just an acknowledgement of fact. Some of us naively believed global warming might even be a good thing. Alaska is such a great place to live, we told ourselves, but it would be so much nicer if the winters were just a wee bit warmer.

I also know a whole lot more about farting cows than AOC. My father was a cattle raiser, and I saw a lot of flatulent bovines in the stock pens. In fact, I admit that my father's Angus herd is at least partly responsible for a rise in global temperatures. Mea friggin' culpa.

But will AOC reverse global warming with her Green New Deal? No she won't.  Everybody knows that--even the wax-museum Democrats in Congress.

Better questions to ask are these: What does AOC know about the student-loan crisis, and what will she do about it?

I think the answer to both questions is "Not much." Our national politicians--with AOC in the forefront--bray on and on about problems they know they will not fix. Meanwhile millions of Americans--more than 20 million--have had their lives ruined by student loans that enriched the venal and corrupt higher education industry.

The student-loan crisis is complicated; I acknowledge that. But there are some small things Congress can do that would alleviate the suffering. For example:

Congress could pass Representative Katko's bill to allow distressed debtors to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. Or if that lift is too heavy, Congress could at least allow parents who cosigned their children's student loans  to shed those debts in bankruptcy if they are insolvent.

Congress could also pass legislation barring the Department of Education from garnishing elderly student-loan defaulters' Social Security checks, which Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed in a bill that got nowhere in the U.S. Senate. AOC could endorse that bill, and it would probably be passed in the House of Representatives.

And here is another thing Congress could do. It could pass legislation requiring Betsy DeVos' Department of Education to streamline the process for forgiving student loans owed by people in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

I suspect AOC has never thought about the student-loan crisis, even though a lot of the sufferers reside in her congressional district. And I will close by saying again that politicians who won't do something tangible toward solving the student-loan crisis don't deserve our votes.

It's farting cows, stupid!

Southern Vermont College is closing: Shrinking demand for expensive liberal arts degrees

Inside Higher Ed has done a terrific job reporting on the demise of small liberal arts colleges, and Greg Toppo's recent story on the closure of Southern Vermont College is a fine Inside Higher Ed story on this sad phenomenon.

As Toppo reported, David Rees Evans, Southern Vermont's president, announced that the college is closing at the end of the spring semester. The college has been buffeted by a series of blows: an embezzlement scandal, accreditation problems with its nursing program (which the college resolved), and news that the college's principal accrediting body is planning to put the school on probation.

Closing was the right decision. After all, Southern Vermont only has 332 enrolled students--down from a peak of 500 students just nine years ago. President Evans candidly admitted that the trustees decided to announce its closure now rather than later due in part to fear of being sued if it continued recruiting new students and then shut down precipitously. That's what happened to Mount Ida College, and Southern Vermont wisely decided to wind down its affairs more transparently than Mount Ida apparently did.

President Evans partly blamed negative demographics for its predicament. "New England is in a bad way--especially the rural parts of New England," Evans said. Vermont's high school population, which provides Southern Vermont with about a third of its students, has declined dramatically, and it will decline even more in the years to come.

But demographics doesn't fully explain why so many small liberal arts colleges are closing. There are two more major dynamics in play--and small colleges have no means to counter either of them.

Small, private colleges are too expensive.  First, small, private colleges are simply too expensive for the average family to pay. Most of these small institutions charge somewhere north of $30,000 a year for tuition, fees, and room and board--around $120,000 for a four-year degree. Few families have the resources to pay these costs out of pocket, which means students must take out loans to finance their education.

It is true that small private colleges are discounting tuition drastically--on average by about 50 percent. But $13,000 a year in tuition (about half of Southern Vermont's posted rate) is still a big nut to crack. Increasingly, families are sending their children to attractively priced, regional public universities, which look pretty appealing compared to a rural college with less than 400 students.

A liberal arts education has lost its appeal.  Secondly, some would say tragically, a liberal arts education has lost its appeal in the minds of most Americans. There was a time when most Americans believed that a liberal arts education has intrinsic value. People once believed that a grounding in the liberal arts nurtured civic values, cultivated an appreciation for beauty, and promoted rational thinking. Liberal arts, it was generally believed, helped prepare young people for a fuller and richer life.

I don't think many people believe that anymore. Most young people are keenly aware that they will go into debt to get their college degrees, and they know they must get a degree that will lead to a well paying job or they will be in big financial trouble.  More and more undergraduates are majoring in business, and fewer and fewer are majoring in English, history, and philosophy.

Indeed, colleges themselves are finding it increasingly difficult to articulate exactly what a liberal arts education is these days. For example, there was once a broad consensus about what constitutes the canon of American literature. Scholars might disagree on the details, but most would identify The Great Gatsby as a great American novel--perhaps the great American novel. And most would agree that a basic knowledge of American literature includes at least a passing acquaintance with the works of Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner, and perhaps Steinbeck.

That's not true anymore. After all, these authors are all dead white men. Where are the works of African American writers, Hispanic writers, women writers, LGBTQ writers?

Of course colleges can add books by marginalized writers to the curriculum, and most are doing so. But students can only read so much, and somewhere on the road to greater relevancy in the liberal arts students start asking--what's the f-cking point?

In fact, I have great sympathy with the critics of traditional liberal arts. I for one would rather be shot than read a novel by William Faulkner, Edith Wharton, or Henry James.

Moreover, literature that is particular to my own life experience means more to me than the so-called great works of American literature. I am a Catholic, and I have read widely in the works of Catholic writers: Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Walker Percy, and Alice McDermott. I am a great fan of Myles Connolly's Mr. Blue, a hidden treasure of Catholic literature that is sadly out of print.

But I would not argue to anyone that the Catholic novels that mean so much to me should form part of the liberal arts curriculum. So how can anyone argue that every educated American should read The Great Gatsby?

And so the liberal arts colleges are dying--victims of demographics, soaring costs, and perhaps most of all by our increasingly diverse society that has become fragmented with regard to our understanding of what it means to be an educated American.

Dying with Dignity: College of New Rochelle will probably close

Over the course of my life,  I have witnessed the death of several friends and relatives; and some of them did not die a good death.

My father expired miserably in a VA hospital because his government doctors did not diagnose his treatable cancer in time to save his life. He had survived the Bataan Death March and three years in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II, but that sacrifice did not entitle him to decent medical care in his final years.

I witnessed the death of a relative who died in a ramshackle house he inherited from his mother--a house that smelled of urine and dirt. I was the only person with him when he closed his eyes for the last time.

America's small liberal arts colleges are dying too--brought down by a host of maladies for which there is no cure. And like too many people, many of these colleges are closing their doors without dignity--a fate I don't think they deserve.

William Latimer, president of the College of New Rochelle, sent a memo to the campus community last week, announcing that the college will probably close this summer.  The college was doomed two years ago when campus officials revealed that the college had a huge tax liability because it had failed to pay federal payroll taxes--a $20 million tax bill. Judith Huntington, New Rochelle's president at the time, resigned; and a senior financial officer precipitously retired.

Soon after that revelation, the college received an anonymous $5 million gift, which might have been a payout from the college auditor's malpractice insurance (just a guess), but the infusion was not enough to restore the College of New Rochelle to financial health.

That was two years ago. The college tried to lay off some faculty members to stem the flow of red ink, but the professors sued, and a judge ruled that the college had fired the professors in violation of the faculty handbook. But of course, the professors won a Pyrrhic victory. A college with no money can't pay its faculty, no matter what the faculty handbook says.

New Rochelle's fate is somewhat similar to the fate of Mount Ida College, a tiny little institution located in a Boston suburb. Mount Ida sold out to the University of Massachusetts amid accusations that it had misled professors and students about its imminent demise.  Maura Healy, the Massachusetts Attorney General, expressing the self-righteous indignation so typical of New England bureaucrats, launched an investigation. But to what purpose? Mount Ida still closed.

Other small colleges are cutting academic programs in an effort to stay alive--particularly programs in the liberal arts.  McDaniel College announced a few days ago that it is eliminating five majors and three minors--all in the liberal arts. Students responded as they always do to bad news--by lecturing their elders.

"As students at a liberal arts college," McDaniel  students said in a priggish statement,  "we believe firmly in the first principles of this institution, which advocate for the importance of a liberal arts education."

In ringing tones of high-mindedness, the students sermonized about the importance of the liberal arts. "As you all know, having the opportunity to take courses across many disciplines creates students who are flexible, knowledgeable and able to think critically in the face of all that the world has to throw our way." Music and German, two programs that were cut, "are both living, breathing, culturally relevant languages," the students pointed out. As for other programs being jettisoned,they too are "integral to the creation of well-informed citizens and academics."

Blah, blah, blah. The students who penned that blather ought to take some responsibility for the decisions they made to enroll at McDaniel--just another wobbly and obscure liberal arts college. And what do they think a McDaniel degree in German is worth on the job market? Not enough to pay off their student loans, I wager.

Students can express their rage about programs being slashed and colleges closing. Attorney generals can launch investigations. And professors can sue to try to save their jobs. But the colleges that are closing or downsizing are not generating enough revenue to keep their doors open. That is the stark reality.

Let's let these little institutions die with dignity--because they are dying anyway.

College of New Rochelle (photo credit Inside Higher Ed)

Congressman John Katko introduces bill to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. Will presidential candidates endorse the bill?

Last month, John Katko, a Republican congressman from New York, filed H.R. 770, a bill that would make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy like any other consumer debt.

Titled the "Discharge Student Loans in Bankruptcy Act," Katko's bill is quite simple. It merely strikes the "undue hardship" clause from Section 523(a) of the Bankruptcy Code.

Congressman Katko filed the same bill two years ago. When he filed the bill in 2017, it had ten co-sponsors, including Maryland Congressman John Delaney. When Katko refiled the bill last month, he only had two co-sponsors.

If H.R. 770 becomes law, millions of Americans who are overwhelmed by student loans will get relief in the bankruptcy courts. They will have an opportunity to start families and buy homes. They will get the fresh start that bankruptcy is intended to provide.

Let's make Katko's bill the litmus test for everyone who is running for president or is thinking about running. Let's ask them one simple question: Do you support Katko's bill or not?

• President Donald Trump, do you support H.R. 770?
• Senator Elizabeth Warren, do you support Katko's bill?
• Senator Kamala Harris, do you support H.R. 770?
• Senator Bernie Sanders, do you support Katko's bill?
• Former Vice President Joe Biden, do you support H.R. 770?
• Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, do you support Katko's bill?
• Senator Amy Klobuchar, do you support H.R. 770?
• Michael Bloomberg, do you support Katko's bill?
• Beto O'Rourke, do you support H.R. 770?
• John Delaney, former Maryland congressman who co-sponsored Katko's bankruptcy-relief bill in 2017, you are now running for president. Do you support Congressman Katko's bill?

Our federal legislators are fond of holding committee hearings where they bully witnesses by demanding yes-or-no answers to all their hectoring questions.

Well, here is a question to everyone who wants to be president, and we should demand a yes-or-no answer. Unless a presidential candidate can say "Yes, I support H.R. 770 without qualification," that person is nothing more than a windbag who doesn't care about average Americans and does not deserve our vote.

*****

Note: I am grateful to Phil Uhrich for calling this bill to my attention.  Mr. Uhrich wrote a provocative essay on national politics in 2016 that is still timely.

Representative John Katko (R-NY)

Cooking the Books: Federal Reserve Bank Says $166 Billion in Student Debt is Delinquent, But the Crisis is Worse Than That

Most Americans have confidence in what the Federal Reserve Bank says about the national economy. I know I do. But when the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that $166 billion in student debt is delinquent, it vastly understated the enormity of the student-loan crisis.

In its most recent quarterly household debt report, the Fed pegged total outstanding debt at $1.46 trillion as of the end of December. According to the Fed, about 11 percent of that debt ($166 billion) is delinquent or in default. That's a startling number. But the picture is far bleaker than that.

Just two months ago, Secretary of Education Betsy Devos stated publicly that only one out of four student borrowers (24 percent) are paying down the principal and interest on their loans. "As for FSA's portfolio today," DeVos said, "too many loans are either delinquent, in default, or are [in] plans on which students are paying so little, their loan balance continues to grow." In total, DeVos admitted, "43 percent of all loans are currently considered 'in distress,'" and 20 percent of all federal student loans are delinquent or in default.

DeVos also implicitly acknowledged that the federal government is cooking the books by classifying a lot of student debt as performing loans even though millions of people are not paying them back. "Only through government accounting is this student loan portfolio counted as anything but an asset embedded with significant risk," DeVos observed. "In the commercial world, no bank regulator would allow this portfolio to be valued at full, face value."

In addition to the millions of people who have defaulted on their loans, millions more are in various plans that allow borrowers to skip their loan payments without being counted as defaulters. As of last summer, 7.4 million people were enrolled in long-term income-based repayment plans who are making payments so low that interest continues to accrue on their loans.

Think about that: 7.4 million people whose loans are labeled as performing even though their loan balances get larger with each passing month. You can label that scenario any way you like, but we're talking about 7.4 million additional defaulters.

The Department of Education has been scamming the public for a quarter of a century regarding student-loan defaults. For years, it only reported the percentage of loans that defaulted within two years of entering repayment. To keep their default rates down, colleges encouraged their former students to enter into economic-hardship deferments, which excused them from making payments without officially putting them in default.

Then DOE began reporting three-year default rates, which showed defaults ticking up slightly to the neighborhood of 11 percent. But the Brookings Institute (in a paper written by Looney and Yannelis) reported in 2015 that the 5-year default rate for a recent cohort was 28 percent--more than double the three-year rate.

In other words, for a cohort of borrowers that the Brookings researchers analyzed, more than one out of four student borrowers was officially in default after five years. According to the same Brookings report, the five-year default rate for students who attended for-profit colleges was 47 percent--nearly half!

Of course, loan default rates vary some from cohort to cohort, but there is no sign that the percentage of student borrowers paying off their loans is going up. In fact, the data show the opposite.

In short, the Fed's recent report may be technically accurate but it understates the magnitude of the student-loan crisis. When the Department of Education finally comes clean and gives us some accurate figures, I think we will find that half of all outstanding student loans are not performing--about 20 million borrowers with collective debt totally three quarters of a trillion dollars.