The Debtors Strike Back

Activists want to turn billions in unpaid student loans into a catalyst for political action.

- Natalie Kitroeff

When the U.S. Department of Education announced in June the creation of a formal process for students defrauded by their college or university to seek loan forgiveness, it was a victory for the activist group Debt Collective. The impact of the policy could be huge: Granting forgiveness to everyone who attended Corinthian Colleges in the past five years—the for-profit company that filed for bankruptcy in May amid charges of predatory behavior—would wipe out $3.2 billion in debt owed to the U.S. government.

For members of the Debt Collective, which has been fighting for loan relief since its founding last year, it wasn’t nearly enough. The piecemeal approach of requiring individual borrowers to apply for loan forgiveness seemed unacceptably burdensome. “The right thing to do would be to issue a classwide discharge and understand that this happened to a group of people,” says Ann Larson, 41, one of the organization’s leaders. “No one who is paying attention can possibly think that the Department of Education is doing all it can.” The Debt Collective’s overarching goal, she says, is to persuade the millions of Americans who are severely late on their student loan payments to “revolt”—to turn the billions they collectively owe from a burden into a source of political power.