By: Student Loan Counselors at R&B Solutions, Waukegan IL.

With $67 billion of student loans in default, the Department of Education has turned to private debt-collection companies to pursue borrowers. The Department of Education spent a billion dollars last year to collection agencies that collect on defaulted student loans. The reality is that almost no one should default if adequate default prevention and aversion strategies were put into effect.Delinquencies and default rates are rising as indebted student loan borrowers struggle to repay hefty student loans.

Americans are still recovering from the mortgage crisis, which resulted in millions of Americans losing their jobs and homes. Now a new crisis is affecting students as they have large loan debt, and they cannot find jobs or earn a high enough income to repay the debt causing them to default on their loans.  There is a solution though; most students would never enter the collection process to begin with if the Department of Education focused on assisting students with repayment options already available.

 We urge you to sign our petition and share it with everyone you know to protect student loan borrowers from collection agencies by providing students with the assistance necessary to guide them through the loan repayment process.

Sources: Bloomberg, Department of Education, LA Times, NY Times and R&B Solutions