[Edward64]

Interesting situation for Joe.

This is why I’m not paying my student loans

A huge chunk of student-loan borrowers simply aren’t paying. The pandemic pause on payments may have ended in October, but roughly 40% of borrowers who had bills due that month sat on their wallets and didn’t send a dime to the government. Some experts estimate that even that figure is an undercount, because it likely doesn’t include borrowers whose loans were paused because of servicer errors.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia recently offered an explanation for this situation. It reported that more than half of borrowers who didn’t make a payment in October — including some who were on plans allowing them to make payments as a percentage of their income — said it was because they couldn’t afford it.

Meanwhile, roughly a quarter of borrowers who skipped their October payment did so because of servicing errors. Another 21% said they chose not to make a payment even though they could afford to do so, according to the Philly Fed.

Don't know what'll happen but interesting social experiment. It's like the "sovereign citizens" movement.

A use case ...

“I was like, holy crap, these are all of the words that explain my experiences,” Brooks, who estimates she has about $260,000 in student debt, said after reading the book. “I’m figuring out a way to not pay these student loans. Now I’m going to politicize that. I’m going to talk about it.”

For now, borrowers like Brooks who are participating in the debt strike have the protection of the on-ramp, a 12-month grace period following the end of the pause on student-loan payments that allows borrowers who don’t pay to avoid the harshest consequences of the student-loan system. Once that ends, Brooks said, she’ll have to figure something out.