Episode 25: Student Debt
It might have only been a few days since his last episode, but for Discord, it felt like months. There was a lot of news to take in, especially with the questionable story that he heard about regarding the possible ‘retirement’ of Princess Celestia and Luna. A move that he didn’t necessarily agree with for a lot of reasons. Mostly because the ponies that they want to have take over, the Elements of Harmony, have barely any experience running a country. Heck, they barely even had any experience being able to run a school as teachers. Not to mention the fact that most of them had jobs to work at, families to support and for some, shouldn’t even be corrupted by the subject of politics given that Fluttershy’s overall adorableness could cause several ponies to have heart attacks.
But tonight, there was a different subject that he thought would be more appropriate to discuss. Especially with the graduation of the students at Twilight’s school about a month ago and other schools starting their next semester right around the corner. And when taking a closer look at not just how many ponies were affected by it, but how awful such a thing was, Discord thought that it was something important that had to be addressed.
So, as he prepared to walk out to his desk and the intro music began to play in his studio, that was when he greeted everypony in his audience. “Welcome, welcome to Last Week Tonight,” He proclaimed as the creatures in the audience cheered for him. “I’m Discord. Thank you so much for being here tonight. It’s only been a week, but it feels like years since we last had an episode. Tonight though, I want to get straight into our main story. Because a month after the students at Twilight’s school graduated, all other colleges and universities across the country will be starting classes for their next semester. Where thousands of students would be going to try and obtain whatever they’re majoring in. One thing though has become increasingly clear though. That by the time they graduate, they’ll be leaving with more than just a tacky colored polyester robe and hat that they would only be wearing once in their life or stories of things that happened in college that you would regret much later in life,” A picture of a few ponies partying on the balcony of their dorm was shown as one of them spilled their drink on somepony that was outside. “They’ll be leaving with this.”
“Last year, around seven out of ten students left colleges in debt. Making the overall total bill for students in Equestria around one trillion bits.”
Many creatures in the audience were caught off guard by those facts. Some even gasped in response when seeing how much student debt their was. “That’s right. This is a problem that’s crippling millions of individuals that are fresh out of college. Imagine it like you’re a wonderbolt beginning to start a race, and then the pony that's firing the starting cannon uses it to shoot you out of the sky.” That had a few creatures in the crowd laugh as he looked back at them and began to speak his next point. “Student Debt in Equestria has grown rampantly to the point that its bigger than transport loans for vehicles and medical debts, and it’s second behind mortgages on homes. And you know what’s the biggest sign that this is a big problem? Well, the first is… its debt. Any debt can be seen as a big problem. And secondly, when there’s a game show dedicated to help contestants pay off their loans.”
This was followed by several small snippets of a game show hosted in Applewood called ‘Paid-in-full’, where the contestant on the show is asked several questions and the more that they answer correctly, the more of their debt will be paid off. “That’s right. Some guys turned a national crisis into a game show. And that’s not the only thing. Their tagline for when an episode ends is ‘I know its not everything, but I hope it provides a bit of relief’,” That had several audience caught off guard as Discord began to speak. “Let me put it to you straight, that’s not a sign of confidence from a game show host with no social life. That’s what a doctor would tell somepony after undergoing facial reconstruction surgery!”
A picture was seen of a pony in a full body cast and bandages over his face as he lied in the hospital bed next to Rainbow Dash as his crowd laughed in response. “And just to get a clear view of how badly it is, before we started this show, a survey was handed out to our audience members and from it, we found out that in this room alone, there is over five million bits of debt. Not to mention that we asked a few other questions and from it, we kind of got to know a lot about our audience members,” With that, Discord began to list off a series of actual survey results from what he handed out before the show and present them to his audience. “For one thing, two-thirds of you in this room is single, fifteen percent of everypony here has been to a Countess Coloratura concert, and then there’s the most shocking part. Almost everyone in this room… think that nobles are a bunch of idiots.”
That had the whole room bursting in laughter as Discord just looked at everypony in bewilderment as he shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, I didn’t realize that I was the only one that thought that way until now. Just saying,” With that, Discord changed his tune as he continued to speak and get back on topic. “However though, unlike Nobles, student debt is not something that we can just get rid of and not give a shit about them. Because legally, its a specific kind of debt as this royal economist explains.”
“It’s the most collectible kind of debt that there is. It’s non-dischargeable when it comes to bankruptcy. It will leech your wages, steal from your tax refunds… if its not paid off, the collector will sue you in court…”
“Oh, they’re going to do more than just that,” The spirit of chaos picked up right where the end of the clip went off and started speaking. “They’ll puncture your saddlebags with knives and pick up the coins that fall on the ground, they’ll pawn off all your clothes from when you are a filly and they’ll use the breezie transformation spell on themselves so they can sneak into your saddlebags and pickpocket any loose change you have that way.” The image of a breezie in a business suit stealing a gold bit while in a saddlebag pocket raised some laughs from his audience.
Though, it was around this time that Discord cleared his throat in order to get back to the topic. “Student debt is now three times the amount that it was only a decade or so ago and it has surpassed Songbird Serenade’s first album as the one thing that every college student somehow has,” More laughter from his audience erupted as the cover of Songbird’s first album was temporarily shown. “And I believe the one question at this point that everypony in this room has right now is ‘how did this happen’? Because this all started with rather good intentions. Originally, the royal student loan program was supposed to support learning, and I’m quoting directly from one of its early founders here… ‘learning is an escape from poverty’.”
Of course, that didn’t stop Discord from making a quick jab at it either. “Of course, Escape from Poverty sounds more like the title of the worst ever action movie that you would never want to see,” A movie poster of Soarin in full on Wonderbolt gear with the words ‘Escape from Poverty’ cause his crowd to chuckle in amusement. “So with that in mind, let's talk about Student Debts and tonight, there are a few simple questions that I want to answer. One, what factors are contributing to this avalanche of debt? Two, what happens to you if you end up getting caught up in this mess. And three, what can we do about it?”
With that, Discord had the next image change to where it showed his first question. “And let's begin with the factors. One rather big one is that over the last few years, some cities have cut funding for higher education by around twenty-four percent. In response to that, schools and colleges have been forced to raise the price of tuition, which means that students would have to take out ever bigger loans,” All that was added with another tidbit as he showed a picture of what looked to be Big Mac, Fluttershy, Rarity, Toe-Tapper and Torch Song. “Why else do you think that those schools have so many acapella groups!? They aren’t trying to be the next Pony-tones. They know that they sound stupid, they just don’t have the proper funding to buy actual instruments anymore!!”
An uproar of laughs soon followed that as several other ‘groups’ were put next to the original image of the Pony-Tones. All before being changed back to the title page. “Another consequence to this is that because of cuts, community colleges are forced to decreased class sizes and in some places, its gets even more bizarre. Like a medical school in New Horseleans that has a waiting list… just to get on the waiting list. That’s insane! It’s the equivalent of standing in the long line for a Daring Do convention, just to get into the line that allows you to actually get in!!”
That was followed by a picture of the manehattan convention center that was taken from a crowd, showing a long line of ponies that were trying to get into the building before changing back. “All of this shows that every creature here wants to go to school. Not because they’re forced too, but because they want to better themselves and I am all for that. However, this is also where we bump into one of the big drivers when it comes to student debt. For-profit schools,” Several logos of schools like ‘Ashfur University’ and ‘ETT Technical Institute’ were shown as he continued speaking. “You might remember back when we had the ‘And Now’ segment listing some of the things that we wanted to include in our episode on Trade but didn’t have the time for. Two of them were in regards to the ‘Skim and Scam’ bros scheme that was Friendship University. For-Profit schools are like that… but somehow… they’re bucking legal. In fact, most of them are publicly traded on Rich Street and have recently been airing advertisements like these.”
“One evening, I had some family friends over and one of them told me about ETT Tech. I decided to send them a letter to request more information and it paid off tremendously. I got into the field of aerodynamics and aerospace, been at that for around ten years or so now. Been married for longer and have two young kids. There’s nothing I would change… Everything’s perfect.”
“Well, geez, isn’t that nice,” The draconequus said in a kind of semi-sarcastic tone of voice. “Although, if I may interrupt this for a moment, hearing the phrase ‘everything’s perfect’ would immediately make me a bit suspicious. Why? Well, anytime I hear that, I remember when Janice in Accounting used to say that and secretly put hard cider in her coffee cup. Going as far as to say ‘you can do this, Janice’ to herself in the bathroom mirror to herself five times a day.” That was accompanied by the image of Janice holding Twilight’s coffee cup in what looked like the mares room of Twilight's Castle. Just before the image disappeared and Discord got back on topic.
“According to an article in the Manehattan Times, for-profit schools make up around thirty percent of the amount in student debt, but only make up twelve percent of the students,” He told his audience. “That’s way too far out of proportion, and part of that might be because they are not cheap. In fact, the same article that I mention says that they are six times more expensive than community colleges and twice that of a four year university. And if you are wondering just how the hell does it cost that much, it has nothing to do with the quality of education at all. In fact, you would be appalled by the reason why.”
“If you take a look at for-profit schools, a quarter of the revenue that they earn is from sales and marketing. In a lot of cases, the faculty at those schools are in the ten to twenty percent range.”
A lot of his audience members were indeed appalled by those details. Especially when Discord began to continue talking once again. “You heard that right… They spend half of the amount of bits that they have on professors and teachers than they do on marketing. Even Twilight’s School of Friendship would consider that as an outrageous education plan and there aren’t even any actual teachers working there. It’s basically saying ‘Hey teachers! We’re not saying that we don’t care about you. We’re saying that we care about advertisements of you twice as much’.”
More of his audience laughed again as Discord held out two of his talons to match the numbers that he was saying as he continued. “And if you listen to it from a business perspective, it would make some kind of sense. But that guy uses the worst kind of comparison. Comparing the cost of the materials in a perfume bottle compared to retail. But, if you look at it, both perfumes and for-profit colleges market themselves rather aggressively. For one thing, perfumes market themselves by spraying it into ponies faces whenever they walk into a department store or Sire’s hollow for that matter,” That was followed by a picture of when the pony that greeted Sunburst and Starlight Glimmer sprayed them with a bottle of perfume upon first stepping hoof into the place. “And when it comes to for-profit schools, it’s actually even more hideous. Just watch this former recruiter for DePony University explain the kind of practices that they do to attract future students.”
“Ms. OverCast was once a recruiter at the for-profit school called DePony University four years ago. She quit her job because she couldn’t stand having to ‘prey’ on low income ponies and using something called ‘pain points’.”
“Pain points would be something like… they work at Hayburger King. They don’t want to be like their parents, so we turn that on them. We would ask them ‘do you want to work at Hayburger King for the rest of your life or do you want to do something else with it’?”
A few more gasps from his audience echoed around the studio as Discord began to speak again. “That’s right. Recruiters are seriously told to hit pain points. There are only two kinds of occupations that should ever do that. Dominatrix’s…” A brief glimpse of Princess Luna in a dark leather dress and holding a riding crop in her magical grip. It was only shown for five seconds before it changed to a group of ponies that had their manes died white and looked like their main default emotion was depressed. “… And emo bands. That’s it! And this isn’t just a single instance. This technique is apparently used industry wide. There are even presentations that have slides labeled as ‘how to find their pain points’ and the graphic that they use is from Marathon Mare. Where one actor had the role of playing an infamous torturer that worked for King Sombra!”
More appalled gasps from his audience came a few seconds later, before Discord threw in another jab. “It may not exactly be your best way to conduct business if your philosophy for recruits is like… ‘You know, this really worked out well for King Sombra. Let’s at least give it a test run’.”
The appalled gasps from earlier quickly changed into boasts of laughter as the spirit of chaos cleared his throat. “Now, the whole problem with Student Debt isn’t solely focused on these schools and if I were to go in depth on how bad the for-profit school is, we would be here all night. So instead, let's shift gears a bit to try and answer our second question. What happens if you end up getting caught up in this mess? Well, to put it lightly, the scary part about this is that you can’t even make a single mistake on making payments. Or else, you might face some of the most aggressive debt collection practices. Don’t take it from me though. Listen to what happens when some of them get caught up in the news.”
“The city of Pi-ami suspending the licenses of nearly a thousand health care workers just because they fell behind on their student loans…”
“What’s the worst that could happen to you if you don’t pay your royal student loan? How about being arrested by the Royal Guard?”
“I’m standing in the middle of day court with no rights read to me, no legal representation, and I was told that I owe fifteen hundred bits. I just couldn’t believe it.”
That was followed by a pause for a moment, before Discord looked back at the camera. “That is scary… but in all honesty, if you were arrested by a royal guard and told that you owe them fifteen thousand bits, you wouldn’t think that they were being serious and instead, you would think that they were a stripper,” More laughter echoed throughout the room as the draconequus cleared his throat. “Or it could be both. We have said before that the guard do tend to try on some rather questionable clothes in the past. The point of that is, if somepony owes debt, don’t send the royal guard to go get it.”
One of the pictures that was from the ‘royal guard’ episode resurfaced briefly as the rest of his audience began to chime in. “One of the reasons why Student Debt is rather a pain in order to pay off may be because of how they are managed. It used to be that the royal monarchy would partner with banks so they provide loans to students that had low interest. That way, if the student defaulted because they couldn’t make any payments, the government would be the ones responsible for it. Like a mail courier that delivers packages directly to the intended recipient. Yet, as with many things, all that changed when the nobles decided to buck it up.”
Most of the creatures in his audience looked at one another in bewilderment, wondering what exactly did he mean. “Several years ago, much to the surprise of Princess Celestia, the nobles passed a legislation that allowed for ponies to not have to rely on the government and instead get these kinds of loans directly. And in doing so, it made the Equestrian Education Association the largest bank in Equestria,” Some statistics were then shown on the next graphic. Where the amount of bits that were loaned from the EEA were two times that of some other well known banks like ‘Bank of Equestria’ or ‘Royal Federal Bank’. “That’s insane. That’s the equivalent of finding out that Sweet Apple Acres is Equestria’s largest distillery. It just doesn’t make sense!”
Another round of laughter from his audience as an image of Sweet Apple Acres looking more like a bar was then seen on screen before changing over. “Now, as you can tell, just from the disgruntled emotions of Chancellor Neighsay alone, the EEA was not cut out to be a massive bank. So instead, they took a play from the first page of ‘Noble Douche Playbook Volume 1’,” The fake cover of said book was seen on screen for a brief seconds as Discord continued to speak. “And decided to outsource it to management companies called loan servicers. Loan servicers are companies that provide services to its customers, help them pay their loans on time and help them through the process, which is good right?” A few members in the audience nodded their heads in response to his question, shortly before the chaos spirit continued. “However, that’s what they say that they do. In reality, it’s much different. Watch this investigation piece into how loan servicing works in Califoalnia and you’ll see what I mean.”
“Poor loan servicing is at the core of the problem that so many young students have found themselves falling in default.”
“Our investigation team ran the numbers and found that there were more than over five hundred complaints to the Royal Consumer Protection Board about loan servicers. One of the borrowers from fillydelphia goes as far to describe the process as ‘if Lord Tirek was draining your bits away’.”
“Okay, calm down there…” He said as his audience was caught off guard for that last bit. “That’s a bit drastic to describe it. Besides, Tirek wouldn’t even need the bits. He doesn’t get parole in Tartarus. And unlike loan servicers, he claimed responsibility for his actions,” Several more laughs began to echo around the chamber as he looked back at his audience. “In order to look at and understand loan servicers, you need to take a look at some of the worst things that some of them have been accused for. Because the rap sheet is horrific.”
Discord now began to count off some of the things that some loan servicers have been accused for and caught for one by one. “Fucking over members of the royal guard? The loan servicer named PaveWay settled a lawsuit three months ago for overcharging active duty service members. Damaging the disabled? Another company named Hay-vient has been accused of misreporting information on thousands of disabled borrowers and damaging their credit in the process. And in some cases, they even went as far as to charge them twice. And if you are someone who likes their job in charging disabled ponies twice… you are not only going to Tartarus, but you’re going to get a special cell right next door to Tirek and Cozy Glow.”
That was followed by the graphic of an empty cell that was right next to the centaur and the insane filly as his crowd laughed. “But it’s not just that. Just watch one pony tell them of the customer service that they received when they were having trouble making a payment.”
“Almost jokingly, I told the receptionist that ‘I can either have you lower my payments so I can be able to make rent and then pay you… or I can pay you fully and then spend my days living in a wagon’. And I swear to Celestia, the receptionist tells me ‘I don’t want to tell you that you need to live in your wagon, but I think you’re going to have to live in your wagon.”
“Are you kidding me!? Living out of a wagon only works for Trixie and that’s it! Nopony else would enjoy having to live in a wagon for the rest of their life,” Many creatures laughed at that before he cleared his throat and got back to what he was saying. “But loan servicers are one part of the problem here. The root of it is with the Equestrian Education Administration, because not only are they being so negligent about this problem, every step they do take is practically criminal. Take for example their public service loan forgiveness program. It was put into law eight years ago around a week or two after Luna’s return and the original blueprint of it was rather straightforward and planned to encourage ponies to go into public service. Seems good right? Well, here’s the thing, nearly thirty thousand ponies submitted applications last year after meeting the requirements for it. Yet, only eighty-two of them actually got approved. Less than zero-point-zero-three percent. Pinkie Pie has more Apple Family heritage then that!”
More of the crowd laughed as an image of Applejack and Pinkie Pie going down a waterfall attraction was seen briefly. “For years, these ponies were promised by their country that if they followed their guidelines, their debt could be forgiven. However, as you can see so far, our government has been dropping the ball. Not to mention that the pony who the noble bastards put in charge is not helping out either. And this is where we introduce to you Profit Margin. The pony that Neighsay put in charge of handling this crisis. But her background would immediately disqualify her. Because her resume consists of being the collector for several large banks and the former head of one on the loan servicers we mentioned already. Hiring a former head of a loan servicer to help creatures solve their student loans is the equivalent of trying to find a babysitter and then hiring a timberwolf.”
That got the whole room laughing as a picture of an adult alpha timberwolf was seen peeking over the shoulder of a young filly. Which made Discord roleplay a bit as he tried to beg the wolf to ‘please don’t eat my filly’. “To give you a taste of how poisonous her actions are, in the short time that she’s been in office, she’s slashed protections for ponies that are borrowing for the student loans and she’s blocking cities from investigating loan servicers. She’s supposed to be a lifeguard to watch over and help students, not ignore them as they are showing signs of drowning. And it’s not just me giving her a one star performance review.”
“A new scathing report from the royal parliament blasts the Equestrian Education Administration for its student loan department failing to watch over the companies that are managing those loans.”
“The department has not been catching up with the amount of attention that it needs to pay to a topic that some would see as ‘not catchy’.”
“Not catchy? That guy just won the ‘Biggest Understatement of the Year’ award right there,” Discord conjured a fake award to match what he was saying as his audience laughed and cheered. “Try squeezing comedy out of the mostly depressing topics that we have covered so far in this series. Is that not catchy enough for you?” More laughter followed suite as an image of comedy being squeezed out was shown as if it was literally being squeezed out of an orange. “Not only did this prove that loan servicers like Hay-vient and PayWay were screwing over their customers, but this also proved that the EEA knew that it was doing so, but did not do anything about it. Not to mention the fact that Profit Margin’s ties with the Royal Consumer Protection Board convinced them to not even consider going after them. Which is beyond criminal. You’re in charge of an agency that’s supposed to protect individuals financially… but instead, you’re protecting the companies that are hurting them. It’s even lead to some senior staff members quitting in protest. And how does Profit Margin take all this?”
“To be honest, I just saw those letters in ‘Equestria Today’ and to be honest, I think they only did it just to get their names in the paper.”
“Honest question here… Who really thinks that they want to try to have themselves be in ‘Equestria Today’ as a sign of protest? They’re the foals menu of newspapers,” Discord’s comments sparked up even more laughter from his crowd. “As you can tell from everything seen so far, the deck is being stacked against students. And this brings us to our third question, what can we do about it? Because sadly enough, many equestrians don’t even have the proper knowledge of how to navigate this infinite maze of a system. It used to be where this system was supposed to help ponies that wanted to learn, but now, it's become a massive minefield. And each day, it's getting harder for ponies in order to make it out.”
That had Discord look back at his audience and let out a breath. “So… with that in mind, I figured that instead of just telling you ponies the problems that I do something to help contribute to fixing it. Remember when I handed you those surveys?” Every creature in the audience nodded. “Well, through a bit of magic and some workarounds with the system, I was able to acquire the legal rights for your student debt. But instead of having it to where you guys are going to have to pay me, I’m working with a non profit organization that is legally allowed to forgive student debt with no consequences to the debtor-”
The whole room began to roar in shock and surprise, even though Discord himself was not exactly finished just yet. “-and if you ask ‘why exactly can’t you do it with everypony’s debt’, I would say… I know its not everything, but I hope it provides a bit of relief.”
The following day
It was a calm and quiet morning as the pony named Neighsay was getting himself ready for the day. He had a lot of important meetings to attend and important decisions to make as part of the EEA. But as he was in the middle of breakfast, he happened to get a rather rude awakening.
First, there was the fact that there was angry mob that was just outside his door. And second… “NEIGHSAY!! I WANT YOU IN MY CHAMBERS RIGHT NOW!!!”
At that point, everything else in his mind vanished and he only had one question to himself… What could he have done to provoke the wrath of a princess?
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That was Twilight yelling wasn't it.....
9520265
Considering how seriously she takes learning? I wouldn't be surprised. At all.