There is a great deal of truth on both sides of the argument here. But, ultimately, I too will have to agree with Mac. You were not defrauded. You entered into an agreement, albeit a crappy one in which you are on the losing end. While you are not the victim of fraud, you have, however, been misled. You have been misled by the ideas of society at large concerning education and success. These ideas have already been well dissected above, so I won't rehash them. But now having realized that you were duped - duped but not defrauded - you're understandably hacked off about it. If, as seems to be the case, you feel that it is the entire system in which the student loan process operates that is fraudulent, you cannot hope to find a remedy in accordance with the rules of those who run the game. No one seems to dispute the idea that paying back the money you borrowed is the right thing to do. But being that you possess a useless degree rendering you unable to earn enough income to repay the money you borrowed to obtain said degree, you're in a catch-22. You borrowed money from an entity in order to purchase a worthless commodity, yet it was that same entity which assured you of this commodity's endless value. While technically this doesn't constitute fraud, and is not, therefore, legally wrong, it is, nonetheless, morally reprehensible. The question is now: what are you going to do?
Take your diploma and mail it back to the institution from which you received it. Include a letter explaining that the product did not perform as advertised, and that you are returning it as defective. Make a copy of both these documents and send the copies to whomever collects the payments on your student loan debt. Volunteer to the debt collectors that you relinquish all the monies that you have previously paid them, but that you will not be paying them anything further. What will this accomplish? Most likely they'll just think you're an insane person. But, although you will not be in good standing in the eyes of the system, you will have cleared your conscience and morally righted yourself. Never take on anymore debt. Ever. If you can't afford to buy it outright, you don't need it. Of course it would be wrong for you to then pursue employment under the auspices of your now defunct degree. Get a construction job. Of course you'll be living on the edge of poverty and unable to attain those idealized goals of financial solvency and prosperity. But weren't those the goals instilled in you by the same duplicitous, corrupt system that deceived you into pursuing some useless degree at your own financial peril and that shackled you to some contrived conception success?
