Some really smart and compassionate people organized a huge non-profit endeavor, raised millions of dollars, then recently got an appointment with the Vice President of Sallie Mae’s Portfolio Management; THE guy who does the buying and selling of student loans for Sallie Mae. Based on a recent article, the conversation probably went about like this:
Q: Do you guys sell loans really cheap to private companies? Because we’re interested.
A: No, we don’t?
Q: Really? Not at all?
A: Well, to two companies.
Q: Two private companies in the whole nation?
A: Yep. Just them.
Q: OK, but we’d like to buy some, and we’ve got serious money to do it with. Like, millions.
A: Oh, well… maybe. Why do you want to buy student loans?
Q: Oh we believe student loan debt is crippling the productivity of our country, and there are many services for loans online, as you can see in the post here. So we’d like to purchase the loans on pennies to the dollar like other private banks and private loan companies and then we’re just going to send a bunch of letters to all the debtors saying: “You’re debt has been cancelled! You’re free! Now you can use your money on things like your health care debt, or saving for your childrens’ college so they don’t go into debt.”
A: Wow, that’s uh… crazy. But anyway, why are we talking about this? We don’t sell loans to private companies.
Q: That’s not true, you just told me you did.
A: No, we don’t. You misunderstood. Please leave.
Please follow Rolling Jubilee, consider donating, consider telling all your friends about it. This is Old Testament economic practices done with candor, strength, and ingenuity. I love this.
Do Stuff About it Here:
- Here’s an article about that conversation
- Rolling Jubilee’s Website
- Rolling Jubilee on Facebook, called “Strike Debt”
- Rolling Jubilee on Twitter
- Sister organization “Strike Debt” on Tiwtter
- Rolling Jubilee is not currently taking donations, but I think the Sept 17 announcement suggests that they’ll start again then. Until there, here’s ways you can help now.
