For-Profit College Debt Peons

Shopping

The campus was a website and a strip-mall office that has since closed. Purchases are a laptop financed at checkout and gas between gig pings. The mailbox fills with debt-relief scams that detect desperation faster than any servicer picks up a phone.

Spending

Twenty-eight grand of non-dischargeable debt for a certificate employers discard, sold by an operation that spent more on ad buys than on instruction. The federal Title IV spigot was the actual business model and he was the conduit the money flowed through. A decade in, income-driven repayment has grown the balance past the original principal.

Media

Retargeting ads that still follow him, a servicer portal that loads slowly and accrues quickly, and a subreddit full of people holding the same worthless certificate. He was recruited like a lead, not enrolled like a student, by a marketing department wearing an admissions title. The brochure was a financial instrument.

Interests

Working the gig app, refreshing a balance that grows while he pays it, and telling people that yes, he finished. He did everything the brochure instructed. He wasn't the customer; he was the underlying asset.