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Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

nytimes.com

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Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#31

Post by declan_roberts »

petcat wrote: post #5

She's from Colorado and decided to go to an out of state university (Oregon) and pay full out of state tuition for a degree in "historic preservation"? Yeah no shit you just signed up for a lifetime of debt. Reminds me of another story of some lady that got saddled with a couple hundred thousand in debt because she really wanted to go to Duke for a theater management degree. And then fled with her Russian fiance to M…

She could have easily saved 50+% of her tuition just living in state for 2 years, and attending community college counts. She didn't even need to pause her education or delay graduation.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#32

Post by propter_hoc »

namenotrequired wrote: post #14
dvt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moderately successful in academia and as far as I can tell Why not pay your debts then? I totally understand debt forgiveness for extenuating circumstances (and imo, it's a crime that student loan debt can't be forgiven, and the interest rates are often predatory—especially in the case of med school and law school), but this just sounds like stealing with extra steps.

I may be wrong but I read “moderately successful in academia” as meaning: they have succeeded in gaining some social capital but make little money

Sorry - didn't mean to be vague but I don't want to out my acquaintance too much. She has a good job in STEM. I think she does fine for herself and I would have thought her capable of paying the loan.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#33

Post by yunnpp »

namenotrequired wrote: post #16
propter_hoc wrote: post #4

I'm Canadian, but I know someone from the US who did this. She's living in Paris, moderately successful in academia and as far as I can tell, completely happy to never return to the US. Her family goes to visit her in Europe once in a while. Perplexing.

Which part perplexes you?

That they're Canadian.

But jokes aside, I'm curious too. Nothing there seems too extravagant, people move abroad all the time. Maybe it then takes them 30 years to realize they didn't have it so bad after all and move back. I'm not speaking for the US here specifically, but more generally. Those longer term stories I think are more interesting.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#34

Post by throwuttfj »

retired wrote: post #15

People in The Netherlands have done this. They go to S/E Asian countries to skip out on a €30,000 debt. After a while your passport becomes invalid which makes travel very difficult. And with the outstanding debt you are not able to get a new passport. Which is dumb, because you only have to pay off the debt if you are able to, interest rate is very low, you can pause it for a few years and after 35 years the loan is…

> Passport Blocks: Arrears exceeding €5,000 can result in registration in the passport alert system, making it impossible to receive a new passport,

I would say that is pretty serious violation of human rights, for relatively small infraction. Soviet countries used similar system to prevent people from leaving their communist paradise.

How are you supposed to pay your debt, if you are not allowed to find new job abroad?!

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#35

Post by post-it »

throwuttfj wrote: post #34
retired wrote: post #15

People in The Netherlands have done this. They go to S/E Asian countries to skip out on a €30,000 debt. After a while your passport becomes invalid which makes travel very difficult. And with the outstanding debt you are not able to get a new passport. Which is dumb, because you only have to pay off the debt if you are able to, interest rate is very low, you can pause it for a few years and after 35 years the loan is…

> Passport Blocks: Arrears exceeding €5,000 can result in registration in the passport alert system, making it impossible to receive a new passport, I would say that is pretty serious violation of human rights, for relatively small infraction. Soviet countries used similar system to prevent people from leaving their communist paradise. How are you supposed to pay your debt, if you are not allowed to find new job abro…

The Dutch embassy will be happy to get you home, where you can find a job.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#36

Post by mothballed »

throwuttfj wrote: post #34
retired wrote: post #15

People in The Netherlands have done this. They go to S/E Asian countries to skip out on a €30,000 debt. After a while your passport becomes invalid which makes travel very difficult. And with the outstanding debt you are not able to get a new passport. Which is dumb, because you only have to pay off the debt if you are able to, interest rate is very low, you can pause it for a few years and after 35 years the loan is…

> Passport Blocks: Arrears exceeding €5,000 can result in registration in the passport alert system, making it impossible to receive a new passport, I would say that is pretty serious violation of human rights, for relatively small infraction. Soviet countries used similar system to prevent people from leaving their communist paradise. How are you supposed to pay your debt, if you are not allowed to find new job abro…

US does same for very small child support debts (I think around $1000) as well as larger tax bills. Of course when I cross to/from Mexico by land at small crossing I've noticed most have no passport and just beg for forgiveness which usually works.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#37

Post by llm_nerd »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #7
jazz9k wrote: post #2

Who wouldn't want to rack up a bunch of debt and just not pay when the bill came due?

Many people seem to have been successfully brainwashed into moralizing debt but only for 19 year old serfs who have been lied to about the value of the asset they're taking out debt for. If its a corporation transferring 20 billion of debt into a leveraged buy out so they can shut down the company after squeezing all the assets out of it, that's just doing business.

A similar situation occurs if you bring up usurious bank charges, such as overdraft fees. I lucked into an aptitude for a lucrative paycheque/career, but somehow I still manage to feel enormous sympathy for people being utterly robbed by these fees, banks literally structuring transactions to charge enormous penalties to the very people least able to afford it, for something which actually costs them fractions of a cent.

People become absolutely psychopathic about these sorts of discussions, and become heartless, soulless goblins. Even people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder will desperately line up to show how good of little corporate bootlicking subjugates they are.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#38

Post by retired »

standardUser wrote: post #24
retired wrote: post #15

People in The Netherlands have done this. They go to S/E Asian countries to skip out on a €30,000 debt. After a while your passport becomes invalid which makes travel very difficult. And with the outstanding debt you are not able to get a new passport. Which is dumb, because you only have to pay off the debt if you are able to, interest rate is very low, you can pause it for a few years and after 35 years the loan is…

In the US, student loan interest rates tend to be close to market (which I find despicable) and there is no automatic forgiveness. In fact, student loan debt has extra rules in the US making it difficult to get discharged in bankruptcy, so even that route doesn't work for a lot of people.

Had to look it up, it is 2.3% for 2026 which is a bit below the Euribor 1 year rate. Between 2017 and 2022 it was 0%.

Loan forgiveness happens after 35 years so for most academics that is about 10 years before retirement. Forgiveness also happens upon death.

Bankruptcy is a bit different here. We have a program where someone manages your finances for about three years, and after that most remaining debt is forgiven. However, student debt is an exception, that one stays

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#39

Post by ceejayoz »

standardUser wrote: post #24
retired wrote: post #15

People in The Netherlands have done this. They go to S/E Asian countries to skip out on a €30,000 debt. After a while your passport becomes invalid which makes travel very difficult. And with the outstanding debt you are not able to get a new passport. Which is dumb, because you only have to pay off the debt if you are able to, interest rate is very low, you can pause it for a few years and after 35 years the loan is…

In the US, student loan interest rates tend to be close to market (which I find despicable) and there is no automatic forgiveness. In fact, student loan debt has extra rules in the US making it difficult to get discharged in bankruptcy, so even that route doesn't work for a lot of people.

Yeah, I find this deeply frustrating. Interest rates are supposed to reflect the level of risk, and student loans are deeply low-risk to the lender.

Re: Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

#40

Post by gunapologist99 »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #3
jazz9k wrote: post #2

Who wouldn't want to rack up a bunch of debt and just not pay when the bill came due?

Companies do this all the time, then declare bankruptcy and move on.

People investing in companies do so knowing that it might be a poor investment.

But if a company borrowed the money and never had the intention to make enough to pay it back or return on investment, we have a different word for that. That word is fraud. Just ask Elizabeth Holmes.

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