E4: College as Parent Plus Traps
Parent Plus loans were designed to dig for deeper pockets to sustain the “public good.” Tom Borgers, who led investigations of Bernie Madoff and the 2008 mortgage lending crisis on behalf of the Federal Government, is a Wall Street banker, fraud specialist, with a brain and a heart. He’s rattled by the student lending crisis unfolding. His scathing findings reveal how colleges fail to ask borrowers whether they could ever afford tuition. Women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by the shaming debt burden. Cosigners like American singer/songwriter Reggie Harris is entrapped like millions of others. Borgers reminds college presidents of their fiduciary responsibilities: IF they were bankers, university presidents would be locked up, or heading to jail! Unfortunately, colleges are not held accountable (see Episode One: Indentured Students).