The Illegitimacy of Student Debt 

Prominent among the concerns of occupiers worldwide is the extent to which educational debt has truncated their possibilities and, in effect, tied them to a certain way of living in a way that is structurally not unlike what faced an 11th Century European serf.... the comparison of contemporary student loan debtor to medieval serf is more than mere hyperbole....

If the debt is to the federal government, at least it takes several months of missed payments to be considered in default. If, however, it is a private loan, one single payment can be sufficient to throw the borrower in default. What happens in default? There are still limits to the amount of money that can be extracted at a given time, but it can and will be taken eventually, along with any federal benefits, tax refunds and wages that can be garnished. In some cases, professional licenses such as those in law, medicine and teaching can even be revoked....

Hence the singular importance, for the system of neo-peonage, of the non-dischargeability of this non-collateralized debt: not one of your possessions—car, house, computer, etc.—but your very educated self is the “property” that is owed back.... I would suggest that existential debts in areas such as education and medicine provide a coherent focus for protest.
............... David J. Blacker