Credit- Ted Eytan License-CC BY-SA 2.0
Betsy Devos sucks. We all know it. It’s not even an opinion at this point; more just a general fact. Even republicans tend to agree. She’s astoundingly unqualified (as is most of Trump’s recent new hires). She has zero experience working in the public school system, and of course, didn’t send her own children to one.
She believes that children should have the right to pack heat at school, in the event that a bear should happen to attack the halls and classrooms. She’s a hardcore advocate for providing government funding to private schools that discriminate against students of the LGBT+ community, because evidently parents should have the right to choose whether they send their kid to school with a gay kid.
Seriously, she sucks eggs. That’s pretty much old news at this point. Devos is slick though. Just when you think she’s gotten as monumentally shitty as possible, she says “hold my beer.”
Recently, I wrote a piece on the overall shittiness of student loans and their companies. Long story short, they eat you alive and bury you in crippling amounts of debt— all for a degree that you most likely won’t be able to put to use in our shitty economy these days.
“She’s ignorant. She’s unqualified, and she’s greedy as fuck, right up there with the rest of America’s political system.”
Student loans have never been an ideal system, but Obama tried his best to cushion the blow. Obama implemented two memos that were intended to help protect student loan borrowers. Before these memos, default student loans were basically sent to the highest bidder; whoever was the very best at collecting on debt. Meaning that whichever company harassed a student into paying the most was awarded with more contracts to harass more students.
The Obama memos encouraged borrowers to keep a good track record of their payments and awarded the contracts to the companies with a strong history of helping the borrower. Basically, he stopped rewarding the sharks in the water and started rewarding the companies that showed leniency, and the borrowers that were doing their best to stay on track. This helped give borrowers more options, transparency, and an overall better experience, which led to less loan defaults.
Recently, Devos rolled back these memos. She made it like it used to be, where the loan contracts wound up with whoever was the best harasser at the time. Jerking the rug out from under thousands of student loan borrowers and throwing them right back under the bus that these memos had been protecting them from. The rollback of these memos once again ripped away the borrower’s options and threw them back to the wolves, so that whoever would squeeze the most blood out of the turnip, got the gig. It’s taken away any incentive for a company to work with the student. Due to Obama’s memo, the way that a company treated the borrower was a big deciding factor in whether they landed the contract. Now that incentive is gone again and there’s just no real reason for the company to be nice or helpful.
Devos’s reasoning for this was to “limit the cost to taxpayers” and “increase customer service and accountability.” To Devos, a student loan recipient just can’t be held accountable or responsible unless there’s a pack of wolves at their door and their checks are being garnished every week. Apparently, according to Devos, not being able to buy food or pay rent is the best possible incentive to get those loans paid off; and fast.
Her excuse, that the memo she’s reversing limits costs to taxpayers, doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. Taxpayers are in no way affected by the Obama-era memos. They did not raise their taxes or affect their taxes in any form. The only thing that affects the taxpayer is when the student loans are defaulted on and the loans aren’t being paid back. Then and only then will a student loan affect American’s precious tax dollars.
Considering that the memos implemented by Obama were successful at increasing the percentage of student loan pay back, and at decreasing the percentage of default, Devos’s reasoning behind this rollback holds no merit other than a huge shout-out to big business. She may as well grab herself a megaphone and a sandwich board and scream from the rooftops, “We care a shitload more about what big business companies can do for us than we do about you not being able to afford food thanks to crippling student loan debt!”
Moral of the story here: Betsy Devos gives absolutely ZERO fucks about you, your debt, your ability to pay off that debt, or what basic survival necessities you will be forced to skimp on to keep from defaulting. Not one single shit is given from that dreadful excuse of a woman. Which brings us back to our original point of the story; Betsy Devos sucks big, fat eggs.
She’s ignorant. She’s unqualified, and she’s greedy as fuck, right up there with the rest of America’s political system. She seems to forget— a large portion of the American taxpayers that she claims to be saving money for, are in fact, student loan borrowers. The tax payers and the borrowers are very much one in the same. The very people that she’s supposedly “going to bat for” are the ones that she is throwing to the wolves. By rolling back these provisions, she’s hurting everyone; the taxpayers, the borrowers and everyone in between. The only thing she’s “helping” is the lining of her own pocket.
If a student can’t pay back their loan, then that responsibility falls back on the American taxpayer. All she’s succeeded in doing is make it more difficult to pay back those loans. So, if you happen to be one the few left that is sitting around thinking, “Well hell yea, ole Betsy is doin’ us a solid. Ought not make it so easy on them damn millennials anyhow.” Think again, my friend. Because when they suddenly don’t have the previous options anymore, their debt is falling on your head, Jim Bob. No favors here for you. Enjoy paying off that millennial’s debt, and be sure to write ole Betsy a big ole thank you card.
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Andrea is a freelance writer based out of Kentucky. She is the mother to a 3 year old little girl and step-mother to a 6 year old boy. She’s been married to her husband and best friend for 5 years. She enjoys fishing, camping, hiking and the occasional glass of wine by a bonfire.