I think there is a great essay to be written about rebelling against student loans, but this wasn't it.

I believe the student loan program has been harmful. I don't mind that "bankruptcy" has social and moral as well as financial implications, but I also agree that there are times when it is acceptable to fail to pay your debts, with regret.

This is why we have bankruptcy law. We accept that there are times where circumstance, usually combined with bad judgement, have put someone into a financial hole that they will never climb out of. We don't, as a civilized society, see much point in garnishing someone's wages for the next 50 years to pay off a debt (or perhaps only make a dent it it). We accept that after a total collapse and loss of all wealth, followed by period of credit purgatory, you may rejoin the economic world with a more or less clean slate. This has an additional benefit in that it forces creditors to be careful too, as they should be. I have no personal interest in watching my government's courts, resources and monopoly on physical force used to chase down payment of a foolish loan for decades and decades.

So to me, the real problem here is that the government guarantees the loans in exchange for a very unusual loss of bankruptcy as an option. This allows private lenders to loan money at low interest rates without fear of non-payment, but is that a good thing? I understand that there may be some social value in these loans, and that there is a greater risk of someone "walking away" (ie., they mythical med student with 200k in debt who declares bankruptcy, lives with his parents during residency, and starts making huge bucks just as the credit purgatory ends). But overall, I do think it's useful to ask "would it make any sense for a private lender, subject to normal bankruptcy laws, to make these loans?" 20k for a masters degree in engineering? Yeah. $150k for a masters in philosophy?

It gets worse. Because this easy but very dangerous credit was extended to students, Universities (in my opinion) raised their prices to reflect the availability of money. This reduced the available options for students who were clear-eyed about the debt they were taking on. It's still possible - in California, community college followed by a UC or State school can yield a very very high quality education, especially considering that half of UC students pay no tuition. But I think it's very likely that universities that would have looked for ways to offer lower cost educations instead charged more simply because now students could pay for it through these loans.

And because the loans couldn't be discharged through ordinary bankruptcy, the trap was now set. It doesn't help that these loans are also typically taken out for something that traditionally happens in your first year of legal adulthood. In short, at age 18, the very first year someone is even allowed to enter these sorts of agreements, we set them up to take out loans that can't be discharged through bankruptcy and will follow them their entire lives.

Ok, so, it's pretty clear I'm disgusted with the way student loans work (just to be clear, I think it's fine for the government to fund education, I just think that the student loan program, as it was implemented, ended up doing harm). But I'm also not impressed with the writer of this op-ed. He ran up a huge debt getting humanities or writing degrees, and then decided that because the debt would prevent him from becoming a writer, he just wouldn't pay it.

You know, there are lots of people who would like to be writers, musicians, or artists. They find a way to pay the bills and live, while pursuing their passion. Sometimes they have to give it up, other times they don't achieve what they would have otherwise. Many of them walked away from degrees that might have provided the career boost Mr Siegel got from having attended Columbia, understanding that the trade-off wasn't worth it.

In short, I think the NYTimes gave one of the least sympathetic or compelling people the bullhorn on this issue.

I'd love to read a compelling op-ed on this topic, but this wasn't it.