The students assembled outside Borough of Manhattan Community College this morning were indignant. “Students are juggling college expenses and family obligations,” declared student government representative Shadae Blair, “one reason we seek an education is to get ahead in life.” But students feared their efforts to get ahead would be stymied if future employers scrutinized their credit reports and didn’t like the amount of student loan debt or the size of the credit card liability they saw there.
Their concern was reasonable: Six in ten employers nationwide look at credit reports when hiring, and there are no rules or legal guidelines for what aspects of a job applicant’s credit history they can consider or what weight they should give to it. With $3 trillion of student loan debt outstanding, no one wanted to be the next Latoya Horton – fired from a new job (or never hired at all) because of the very loans they needed to qualify for it.
