Student Loan Crisis

Wall of Shame:  Jeffrey Dorfman   There is a shockingly inaccurate and harmful article out yesterday at Forbes:   Student Loan Debt Hits Record High And That's Good https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2018/05/10/student-loan-debt-hits-record-high-and-thats-good/#22a598aa1bf9 The author, an economics professor at the University of Georgia named Jeffrey Dorfman, gleefully declares, essentially, that there is no student loan crisis, students are doing fine, and that the $1.5 Trillion in student loan debt is "A Good Thing". He trots out highly suspicious "statistics" from hugely biased "experts" like the Student Loan Hero, who make their money luring vulnerable, defaulted borrowers into "loan rehabilitation".  In private email, I confronted him with the following well proven and documented facts:   1. The default rate for 2004 students- who were only borrowing a third of what they are today- is an astonishing 40%. Even subtracting out the terrible for-profit colleges leaves a default rate of 33.4% for the "Good Schools". 2. At the end of 2016, there were 8.1 people in default on the books. Off the books (ie "rehabilitated") defaulters bring this total to 9.6 million people. At the end of last year, this has likely grown to about 11 millionn people. THIS IS ONE FOURTH OF ALL BORROWERS. 3. Something like 90% of the people in the various forgiveness programs are being disqualified, and left owing FAR MORE than when they entered the programs. He refused to even acknowledge them.  He only claimed that student borrowers at the University of Georgia leave school with only $8,000 in loans -an outrageously incorrect claim!.   This sort of piece is really harmful to us.  It gives Congress cover (however thin) to do nothing.  Dorfman has written several, similar pieces in the past.  The time has come to elevate him to our "Wall of Shame".  You can reach him directly at:   [email protected] 706-542-0754