Source: AlterNetBruce E. Levine
The solution to class exploitation and abuse is always the same: Get conscious, get angry, get energized, and get organized.
In October 2011, the White House announced,
“Currently, more than 36 million Americans have federal student loan
debt.” By the end of 2011, student loan debt had exceeded $1 trillion. Two-thirds of college seniors graduate with student loans, including over 62 percent of public university graduates.
According to the Project on Student Loan Debt,
they carried an average of $25,250 in debt in 2010, but many have far
greater debt than that average. And nowadays, with high unemployment,
even higher underemployment, the inability to pay bills, and
accumulating interest and penalties, the lives of student loan debtors
can quickly turn into financial nightmares.
Indentured Servitude? I’ll be paying for my student loans for the rest of my life....A large portion of my earnings goes to the Wall Street elites that have commoditized and securitized my loans....I knew at the time I signed the student loans (again and again) that I would be responsible...what I didn’t figure was the cost to my children —Jeff Vincent, AlterNet
How outlandish is it to say that the spirit of indentured servitude
has been revived in the United States? What can young people and their
parents do to prevent student loan debt servitude, and what can all of
us do to help liberate student loan debtors who are currently doomed to
decades of financial misery?
Colonial Indentured Servants and Modern Student Loan Debtors
In colonial America, historians estimate that between one-half and
two-thirds of white immigrants arrived as indentured servants.
Indentured servants in England were in servitude typically for one year,
while indenture in America was typically four to seven years. Today in
the United States, student debt is an even longer debt commitment than
colonial indentured servitude. The standard Stafford federal loan is,
for example, 15 years, and with waivers and refinancing, it is not
uncommon for Americans to be paying off student loans well into middle
age.
