Cultural suicide-----Times Op-Ed Goes All In On Student Debt Silliness

Times Op-Ed Goes All In On Student Debt Silliness - Forbes
On Saturday, the New York Times op-ed page went all in on the fact-free faux-populism surrounding student debt. 
In an exceptionally tone-deaf piece—and that’s saying something, given the competition in this area—cultural critic Lee Siegel, author of un-ironically-titled Are You Serious and three-time grad of Columbia University, urges borrowers to default on their student loans, just as he did. 
Siegel argues that student loans are in fact immoral, and that defaulting is the path to liberation:

"Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society. I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans. As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example."

Melodrama aside, this is, quite possibly, the worst advice you could give. 
Defaulting on student loans leads to damaged credit, relentless hounding from collection agencies, garnished wages and tax refunds, and—most importantly—an increase in the amount of money you will owe (to cover the cost of collection).