All posts by Richard Fossey

About Richard Fossey

Richard Fossey is a professor at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, Louisiana. He received his law degree from the University of Texas and his doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is editor of Catholic Southwest, A Journal of History and Culture.

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  What If We Just Fixed the Income-Based Student Loan Repayment System

  Sandy Baum published a short essay yesterday in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “Don’t Get Rid of the Income-Based Loan Repayment System. Fix It.” As she said in her essay, the federal student-loan repayment system as...

  • Posted August 2, 2018
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  Betsy DeVos, the for-profit college industry’s best pal, rolls back regulatory protections for students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges

  This week, Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s lamentable Secretary of Education, proposed new rules for implementing the Department of Education’s Borrower Defense to Repayment Program. The new rules–433 pages long–outline the DeVos regime’s procedures for processing fraud claims...

  • Posted July 27, 2018
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  Student Loan Debtor Near Retirement Told to Live Poor for the Rest of Her Life

  Audrey Eve Schatz, a 64-year-old single woman, attempted to discharge $110,000 in student-loans through bankruptcy, but Judge Elizabeth Katz, a Massachusetts bankruptcy judge, refused to give Ms. Schatz a discharge. Why? Because Schatz had enough equity in...

  • Posted July 19, 2018
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  National Collegiate Student Loan Trust Case Inside Look of Mock

  In 2007, Casondra Mock, a Texas resident, borrowed about $20,000 from Union Federal Savings Bank, a Rhode Island institution, to finance her studies at the University of Houston at Clear Lake. The interest rate was high–almost 14...

  • Posted July 18, 2018
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  Watch Out – Student Loan Interest Rates Going Up

  James Carville, who was once President Bill Clinton’s political strategist, famously remarked: “It’s the economy, stupid!” But Carville’s one-liner needs updating. For student-loan debtors, “It’s the interest, stupid!” And student-loan interest rates are going up. For undergraduate...

  • Posted July 16, 2018
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  Single Mother Wins Student Loan Bankruptcy Discharge and Has it Ripped Away on Appeal

  In 2013, Alexandra Acosta-Conniff, an Alabama school teacher and single mother of two children, filed an adversary proceeding in an Alabama bankruptcy court, hoping to discharge student loans that had grown to $112,000. She did not have...

  • Posted July 12, 2018
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  Is the Department of Education Just Being a Giant Bully?

  Distressed debtors cannot discharge student loans unless they can show their loans constitute an “undue hardship” to themselves and their dependents. Congress did not define undue hardship in the Bankruptcy Code, so it was left to the...

  • Posted June 26, 2018
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  Smith v. U.S. Department of Education: A severely stressed student-loan debtor gets bankruptcy relief and the judge questions harsh interpretation of “undue hardship”

  Kirt Francisco Smith, a 39-year-old unemployed man with severe health problems, won a bankruptcy discharge of his student-loan debt–almost $50,000. Every student-loan debtor’s victory in bankruptcy court is something to celebrate; we don’t see enough of them....

  • Posted June 25, 2018
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  Income Driven Repayment Plans for Federal Student Loans Create Moral Hazard

  More and more student borrowers are being forced into income-driven repayment plans (IDRPs) because they can’t pay back their college loans under a standard 10-year repayment schedule. According to an article in Educational Researcher, the proportion of...

  • Posted June 25, 2018
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• The Injustice of Irregular Bankruptcy Student Loan Discharges

  Katy Stech Ferek published an article in Wall Street Journal in which she reported that bankruptcy judges are becoming more sympathetic to debtors seeking to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. Is Ferek correct? I once would...

  • Posted June 18, 2018
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  ECMC and Department of Education Kick Hard at Student Loan Debtor But Court Award Discharge

  Barbara Erkson, an unmarried 64-year-old woman, filed an adversary proceeding in a Maine bankruptcy court in an attempt to discharge $107,000 in student loans in bankruptcy. The U.S. Department of Education and Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC)...

  • Posted June 18, 2018
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  For-Profit Law School Sues ABA and Claims Quality is Vague and Hard to Determine

  Earlier this month, Arizona Summit Law School sued the American Bar Association after the ABA’s accreditors put the school on probation. Don Lively, Arizona Summit’s president, claims the ABA’s accrediting standards are “vague, indeterminate, and subject to...

  • Posted May 31, 2018
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  Mike Meru Racked Up $1 Million in Student Loans to Go to Dental School

  Perhaps you read Josh Mitchell’s story in the Wall Street Journal about Mike Meru, who took out $600,000 in student loans to go to dental school at University of Southern California. Due to fees and accrued interest,...

  • Posted May 29, 2018
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  The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is a Train Wreck, and $350 Million Won’t Fix It

  The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF), created by Congress in 2007, allows people in public service jobs to make income-based student-loan payments for ten years. If they make 120 payments, their loan balances will be forgiven...

  • Posted May 25, 2018
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  Only 1 in 4 Law School Graduates Passed California Bar Exam Last February

  Much like the Lusitania, legal education steams full speed toward its ultimate destruction, while law school deans and professors sip California wine and contemplate their retirement portfolios. Earlier this month, the California’s State Bar announced passage rates...

  • Posted May 23, 2018
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