JumpCrisscrossStudent Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/business/student-loans-abroad-default.html
People in The Netherlands have done this. They go to S/E Asian countries to skip out on a €30,000 debt. After a while your passport becomes invalid which makes travel very difficult. And with the outstanding debt you are not able to get a new passport.
Which is dumb, because you only have to pay off the debt if you are able to, interest rate is very low, you can pause it for a few years and after 35 years the loan is automatically forgiven. It's not a big deal. Completely uprooting your life to skip out on a €50/month payment is insanity but people see that €30,000 number in their portal and freak out about it.
Approximately 25,000 emigrated debtors are currently untraceable by the student debt collector.
In the US, student loan interest rates tend to be close to market (which I find despicable) and there is no automatic forgiveness. In fact, student loan debt has extra rules in the US making it difficult to get discharged in bankruptcy, so even that route doesn't work for a lot of people.
Had to look it up, it is 2.3% for 2026 which is a bit below the Euribor 1 year rate. Between 2017 and 2022 it was 0%.
Loan forgiveness happens after 35 years so for most academics that is about 10 years before retirement. Forgiveness also happens upon death.
Bankruptcy is a bit different here. We have a program where someone manages your finances for about three years, and after that most remaining debt is forgiven. However, student debt is an exception, that one stays