Related: How a decline in community college students is a big problem for the economy
![death by degrees any job death by degrees any job](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/11/08/USAT/a3c9c6b8-9e2f-46e8-917d-3dd5d1ce8b48-GettyImages-608928034.jpg)
When require proof of a bachelor’s degree, what am I going to tell them? That I don’t have my diploma or my transcript because I owe money to my college?”Ī John Jay spokesman provided a link to the CUNY policy for delinquent accounts, which says that students with unpaid balances will have their transcripts and degrees withheld and will not be permitted to register for subsequent semesters. I want to pay off my balance, but I need a job to pay off my balance. “It makes no sense that I paid my whole way through college, and I’m still not able to get the point of why I went to college,” said Nishimura, 23. But because she still owes $3,000, she can’t get her transcript or degree. The daughter of a single mother, she struggled to pay for each semester, scraping together the money as she went, and finished her major in criminology last year.
![death by degrees any job death by degrees any job](https://img.fresherslive.com/private-jobs/images/mjobs/2021/11/16/oni-enterprises-cluster-managers-financial-products-9-to-12-lakhs-any-major-city-of-india-31133717.png)
Lisa Nishimura was in the honors program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York system. But because she still owes the college $3,000, she can’t get her transcript or degree. Lisa Nishimura was in the honors program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where she struggled to pay for each semester and finished last year. She said the university offers payment plans to help students pay them off. It really does get people on the lower rungs of society stuck in a trap that keeps pushing forward cyclical poverty.”Īn OU spokeswoman said transcripts are held for balances due in any amount. This “punitive approach to student debt” is “holding me back,” said Robinson, now 25, who is studying environmental science. But the university won’t release Robinson’s transcript - or any of those credits already earned - because of an unpaid bill for three months’ worth of room and board that, with interest and penalties, has grown to $18,000. Jarrod Robinson left Ohio University after three semesters and then withdrew, ultimately resuming at a community college closer to home. Rebecca Maurer, counsel, Student Borrower Protection Center “A hospital can’t take away someone’s health when they don’t pay, but somehow we’ve allowed higher education institutions to say they can’t have that transcript” proving they’ve received an education. “So what could have been a relatively trivial charge but may be too much to pay at a certain stage in a student’s life could escalate and balloon into something much, much larger.” “What may seem to be a relatively small amount of money - $10, $25, $50 - for some students is a lot of money,” Moses said. In many cases, late charges are added, significantly increasing the original amounts.
![death by degrees any job death by degrees any job](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-6EUNNAGQsQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Unpaid bills can be not only for tuition but also for room and board, fees, parking or library fines and other costs that students sometimes don’t know they owe. Related: Strapped for students, colleges finally begin to clear transfer logjam But when they try to get a transcript to prove that, “it’s held up.” Students “might decide to go back to college, or they might need to get a job, or they might have actually technically finished at a college,” said Bill Moses, managing director for education at the Kresge Foundation, which works to close equity gaps. Millions of students have racked up billions of dollars in debt owed directly to their own colleges and universities.Ī spokesman for UMass Boston, which has 9,848 students, graduates and former students who, like Toro, can’t get their transcripts because they owe money, said only that the university withholds transcripts for unpaid balances in any amount.Īdvocates alternately call this “transcript ransom” and “the transcript trap.” In fact, most people don’t even realize it exists. There’s a whole world of student debt that no one is talking about.
![death by degrees any job death by degrees any job](https://news.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/051118_farmer_paul_4411-1600x900.jpg)
The policy prevents students from being able to take their credits with them if they transfer, and from getting jobs that could help them pay their balances. Nationwide, 6.6 million students can’t obtain their transcripts from public and private colleges and universities for having unpaid bills as low as $25 or less, the higher education consulting firm Ithaka S+R estimates. Toro, who is 23, is one of 97,145 students, graduates and former students who can’t obtain their transcripts because they owe money to Massachusetts’ public colleges and universities, according to data obtained by The Hechinger Report and GBH News. “I did not have time to cry,” he said, remembering the email that came even as he was struggling to find a job in the pandemic. And until he paid, he would be blocked from receiving the degree and transcript that he needed to get a job. In addition to the loan debts he’d incurred, Toro still owed money to the university, including a $200 graduation fee he hadn’t known was mandatory.