While battling debilitating seizures, she frequently missed work and her medical bills quickly piled up. To see more, visit Montana Public Radio.Shannon Otto was a 30-year-old, Nashville-based nurse and mother of two when she unexpectedly fell ill with epilepsy. "Removing my driver's license," she adds, "you just created one more barrier for me being a productive citizen in my community."Ĭopyright 2016 Montana Public Radio. There are plenty of sticks already, like having your wages garnisheed and your credit ruined, says Lindley. And what a better way than their driver's license?" "I think that this is one of the sticks that we can use over a kid who is not paying their student loans," she says. "Then it's a way for a state to identify that person and really help them get into repayment."īut some policymakers want to retain consequences for defaulting. "The state loan authorities would report anybody who had defaulted on loans to all the licensing entities around the state," he says. Weeden adds that tying student loans to licenses, which often have to be renewed every couple of years, created a process to find people when they defaulted. "Because states were essentially the direct lenders to students, many states had large loan portfolios," he says. So Funk wrote a bill ending the state's right to revoke professional or driver's licenses because of student loan defaults.ĭustin Weeden, a policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, says a lot of states passed license revocation laws for student loan defaulters in the 1990s and early 2000s, back before the federal government started taking on a bigger role in lending to students. "There isn't public transportation, or very little," Funk says. ![]() If the goal is to get people to make loan payments, taking away their ability to drive to work just makes it harder for them to make money, especially in rural states. Not to mention, she says, counterproductive. Moffie Funk learned that that was a potential consequence, she says she felt embarrassed. That's putting a lot of people's livelihoods at risk.īut Montana, where Lindley lives, is rolling those sanctions back. ![]() ![]() The percentage of Americans defaulting on their student loans has more than doubled since 2003. In 22 states, defaulters can have the professional licenses they need to do their jobs suspended or revoked if they fall behind in their student loan payments, licenses for things like nursing or engineering. But had she defaulted longer, the state of Montana could have revoked her driver's license. That was motivation enough for Lindley to figure out ways to make her payments. "There was a time where I defaulted on my student loans enough that I never was sent to collections, but just long enough to, honestly, ruin my credit." "I could actually buy a small home in Helena, Mont., with the amount of debt that I graduated with," she says.įresh out of school, Lindley says there were times when she had to decide whether to pay rent, buy food or make her student loan payments. 20150408_me_states_review_laws_revoking_licenses_for_student_loan_defaults.mp3?orgId=214&topicId=1013&d=231&p=3&story=398037156&t=progseg&e=398224552&seg=8&ft=nprml&f=398037156Ĭlementine Lindley says she had a great college experience, but if she had it to do over again, she probably wouldn't pick an expensive private school.
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