Dear members of Forgive Student Loan Debt:
As you're likely aware, this group began on January 29, 2009, the day I wrote the accompanying essay advocating for student loan forgiveness as a means of economic stimulus. At the time I wrote the piece, I was (and remain to this day) current on my student loans. While I may have used my own personal story to illustrate how student loan debt can snowball out of control, I never made the case that I am personally struggling to repay my student loans or that I even want or need to have them forgiven. Rather, I wrote the essay because I was annoyed that a mere 9 days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the exact same arguments we've been having for decades were continuing without any new information or any new ideas for how to stop the economy from completely spiraling out of control. By that time, over 4 months had passed since the near-collapse of the financial sector in September, 2008. We knew how deep the problem was and how difficult it would be to climb back out of the hole that affected ALL of us - from the CEOs to workers with 401(k)s.
It may surprise some to learn that I never, not for a single moment, believed that full, across-the-board loan forgiveness for everyone in America would ever come to pass. Sure, it would be nice and I truly believe it would have the economically stimulative effects that I predicted, however, I was never that naive to believe that the proposal I put forth would become a reality - at least not in full.
Very shortly after starting this group, Jon Chattman of the Huffington Post wrote a piece about my proposal and the group I started, causing membership to skyrocket. Within weeks, stories about the group and proposal appeared in many national and international publications, including BusinessWeek, US News & World Report, The Economist, McClean's, The New York Times, The Washington Times, DailyKos, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Baltimore Sun and many, many others. Each story about the group caused membership to grow exponentially.
As the group's momentum picked up and membership skyrocketed, what started out as a thought piece on how we could better stimulate the economy by directly helping middle class, student loan borrowers, rather than handing trillions of dollars over to the very people and institutions that caused the crisis in the first place, quickly morphed into a true grassroots movement where people from all walks of life came together to share their frustrations, air their grievances, and suggest ways to fight back.
Other groups, such as www.StudentLoanJustice.org, existed for years prior to my starting this group, advocating for modest and reasonable goals such as the restoration of basic consumer protections to student loans, like bankruptcy protections, truth in lending requirements, and fair debt collections practices, all of which were curiously stripped away from student loans but no other type of loan or debt. So, while you can have your mortgage, business debt, credit card debt or even your gambling debts discharged in bankruptcy, student loan debt stays with you for life until it's paid off or you die.
To be honest, because I never had any problems repaying my student loans once I took them out of 5 years of forbearance and learned that I owed about $20,000 more than I had originally borrowed, I wasn't really aware of how differently student loans were treated than all other types of debt. Starting this group gave me a crash course in the disparities and injustices inherent in the student lending industry and I believed that, because I had clearly struck a nerve in the public with my essay, I had an important role to play.
As I said, while full, across-the-board loan forgiveness for every American carrying student loan debt would certainly be nice and I believe it would absolutely stimulate the economy much more effectively than the way Congress and the President opted for, I was never so deluded to believe that my admittedly drastic and radical proposal would ever see the light of day in full. Nonetheless, the mere fact that I was advocating for something so unconventional, caused my actions to have the effect of making the efforts of others like SLJ seem that much more reasonable and achievable.
The more I talked about full loan forgiveness, the more restoration of basic consumer protections like bankruptcy seemed like a no-brainer. I was perfectly content to triangulate the issue so as to focus attention for real action on that which could, and should, be changed: restoring the consumer protections mentioned above, curbing the abuses of private lenders, strengthening Income Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, exposing the fraud of for-profit schools and the self-evident conflict of interest of every financial aid office in every college and university in America acting as agents for the student loan companies.
As membership grew to the hundreds of thousands, I sought out like-minded individuals to help me administer this group by removing spam, starting and participating in conversations, networking with other advocacy groups and fund raising to increase awareness. It quickly became clear to me that trying to raise money for this cause was going to be an uphill battle, to say the least, because the very people I was trying to help, from whom I needed donations, were defined by their lack of disposable income and those unaffected by the student lending crisis, simply put, did not care. I had sunk what little savings I had left into this cause because I truly believed in its potential to usher in the types of changes to the student lending industry that I believed were not only necessary, but achievable. Unfortunately, my personal resources were limited and, thus, so were the initiatives I put forth to the membership, which largely focused on letter-writing campaigns and local media drives to help raise awareness.
I put my trust in some people I shouldn't have trusted, not realizing at the time that certain people were much more interested in self-promotion than they were in advancing the goals of the movement I had started. One individual in particular used my name and the success I had earned up to that point to advance their own narrow self-interests, such as writing a book about the movement, starting their own separate blog, poaching members from my group to follow them, raising money in the name of this group to their own paypal account behind my back, using the group to promote every hair-brained, money-making scheme that popped into their mind to the point where I had had enough and I was forced to cut ties with the unscrupulous opportunist to whom I'm referring. To this day, nearly a year after cutting ties, this group has been the victim of repeated attempts at sabotage by this disgruntled usurper.
Whereas membership used to climb by at least hundreds, sometimes thousands per day, membership in this group has been stagnating around the 298,500 mark for months. It recently came to my attention that the unscrupulous usurper to whom I referred above had either created a fake profile to weasel their way back into my good graces, or convinced someone else to do their dirty work for them, either way, the effect was the same - this new person who I had brought into the circle of trust was deleting people from the membership rolls in a juvenile attempt at revenge on me for opting not to put up with the unrelated and self-serving actions described above.
As you may have noticed, all other administrators of the group besides me have had their admin privileges taken away - not because I lost trust in most of them, but because I had to be certain that my suspicions were correct - that someone I had placed my trust in was using that opportunity to stab not only me in the back, but the rest of the 298,500 members of the group. I will remain the sole admin for the time being because, frankly, I no longer know who I can and cannot trust.
All of that having been said, the reason I decided to write this open letter today is because I wanted to hit the reset button with the remaining members of this group and reiterate that this movement belongs to each and every one of you. If you want to see the types of changes I described above come to pass, it is incumbent upon you to take the initiative and get involved. Don't email stories about student loans to me and ask me to post them - post them yourself! Don't wait for me to start a conversation about debt-related issues - start one yourself! Don't sit back and wait for me to solicit interview subjects for stories in the press - contact members of the press yourself! Make them aware of this growing crisis. Ask them to profile you, or at least to write a story on the state of student lending in American in 2010. Did you know that total student loan debt has finally surpassed total credit card debt in America - with no signs of it stopping any time soon? Neither do most people. Now you do - and now you should contact your local media or your elected officials and make them aware of it too! Are you a college student with a printer? Go to the website - www.forgivestudentloandebt.com and print out ready-made flyers for you to post around campus. Sign the petition and pass it around. Visit sites like: www.defaultmovie.com, www.studentloanjustice.org and www.ibrinfo.org to find out as much information about the student lending crisis as possible. Knowledge is power - arm yourself!
As most of you are aware, I've moved on to other projects, most notably my new website, www.robertapplebaum.com where I blog and rabble-rouse about the things that interest me personally. I'm also the occasional co-host of Shared Sacrifice on BlogTalkRadio, a writer and a budding author. I haven't abandoned the cause, but neither will I devote all of my attention to it any longer as I, too, have bills and rent to pay.
Today starts a new chapter in the Forgive Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy movement. Today, the grassroots take charge. While I will remain an active member of the group and, for the time being, the sole administrator of the group, the onus of taking action is on each and every one of you. I will no longer solicit any money for this group - either its goals will be achieved through the hard work and determination of its extremely healthy membership, or not. It's completely up to you.
I want to thank all of you for all of your hard work thus far and for all of the support you've given me in the last year and a half. I cannot begin to tell you how appreciative I am for all the kind words and selfless efforts from so many of you. Keep fighting the good fight!
All my best,
Rob
