(Bloomberg) Jody Sofia borrowed $92,500 to get a degree from Florida Coastal School of Law. Now she's in default, her outstanding balance having ballooned to almost $144,000, and she spends her days fielding calls from government-contracted debt collectors.
The companies making those calls are just one part of an ecosystem feeding on federal student loans. There are also debt servicers, refinance lenders, firms that help former students stay out of default and for-profit schools that make money as borrowers try to repay more than $1.2 trillion in government-backed education debt.
Sofia is one of 7 million former students in default on a record $115 billion of federal loans, an amount that has grown almost 25 percent in two years, according to U.S. government data. The mountain of debt, for which taxpayers are on the hook, has provided a stream of revenue to companies at every stage of the process.
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