NYT Link:
Amanda Lynn Tully spent her teenage years as a ward of the State of Colorado and believed a college degree was her ticket to a better life.
So, when she graduated in 2017 with a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Oregon, $65,000 in federal student loans and no job offers in the conservation field, she felt misled.
“I was never financially stable because I was never taught to be financially stable,” Ms. Tully, 37, said.
Less than a year after graduating, Ms. Tully made a drastic decision: She moved to Prague, where she had completed an internship, and defaulted on her loans. She hasn’t made a payment in over seven years.
More than 40 million borrowers are saddled with federal student debt, and a record number — 7.7 million — have defaulted on their loans, according to recently released data from the Education Department.
For some borrowers, moving abroad and out of reach of debt collectors can be tempting. In interviews, people who made this decision cited relieving the psychological burden of student debt as a motivator, as well as having a higher quality of life, even on a lower salary, outside the United States. Many who fled abroad, including Ms. Tully, said they had no plans of ever returning.