College students whose majors don’t turn out as they envision will be able to walk away from their loan debt simply by claiming their schools bamboozled them, as allowed under a new rule.
Proposed by the Department of Education, published in June in the Federal Register and scheduled for approval on Nov. 1, the rule will allow students to “discharge” their federal student loan obligation if they can show — and rather broadly — that they were hoodwinked by a university’s “misrepresentation.” This easy out would leave taxpayers and colleges on the hook for between $2 billion and $43 billion over the next 10 years, according to a federal estimate.
And what could be easier than for the lame-duck administration, in its 11th-hour regulatory push, to ship off this sour tart and simply walk away?
For starters, the rule is entirely unnecessary. An existing provision allows students to sue for loan forgiveness in cases of intentional fraud or in other violations of law. What’s proposed is preposterously unspecific, leaving schools with little recourse.
It’s akin to allowing mortgage holders to dump their loans because they picked the wrong neighborhood in which to reside. Or if patrons of kiwi cash bad credit loans were to suddenly demand their loans be forgotten because they used it on the wrong thing. It’s a little silly.
In the end, this latest get-out-of-debt free nonsense helps no one. It simply abrogates personal responsibility. And unfortunately for young people sucked into these liberal escapades, life is not so forgiving.
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