It’s true that some students deliberately default on education loans, but this should not be used as the excuse to infringe upon other defaulters’ rights, who may be unable to repay the loans for legitimate reasons.

The correct way to deal with loan defaulters is to go to court and file litigation against them. Banks and education authorities must resort to legal means when resolving this issue.

Feng Haining (Qilu Evening News): It’s all right for commercial banks to collect debts, but while doing so, they must realize their debt and loan relationship with impoverished students is very special. If banks adopt improper methods, student loans might become “bad loans.” Today, to recover defaulted student loans is already a headache, with a default rate of 28.4 percent; on the other hand, a large portion of students defaulting on loans can’t find a stable job, and therefore have no ability to repay the loans.

When dealing with student loan defaults, banks must first find out which students are deliberate defaulters who actually are able to repay and who are really unable to pay back the loans at the present time. If it is the first case, tough measures are needed and even punishment is necessary; but if it is the second case, banks must be very careful.

Banks should never press for debt payments. If they do, unexpected consequences might follow. Realizing that their loan defaults have been exposed, some students who used to plan to repay the loans may change their minds; if they are pressed too heavily, students may try to change their names, and later banks will be unable to locate the real defaulters.

Ai Lin (www.cfi.net.cn): As for students who depend on loans for college education, they must have a sense of inferiority and certain psychological pressure. Faced with the tight employment situation, they are already becoming worried whether they can repay education loans. Now, banks’ exposure of students defaulting on education loans will undoubtedly cast a bigger shadow on these students. They might be subject to more serious discrimination, especially by students from rich families.

Superficially, to expose student loan defaulters will force them to repay the loans, but it risks pushing the students into a vicious circle. The exposure of their “bad credit record” will make it difficult for them to find a job. Worse still, the exposure may even deprive an already employed student of a job, further harming his ability to pay off the loan.

Most of the students the media publicly exposed are from poor families or underdeveloped regions, and most of their parents are honest, upstanding people. They worked hard to support their children through college, hoping that they could live better and bring honor to the family. But it’s being very cruel to them when their children are described as dishonest and unreliable just because their education loans are in default.

Zhong He (Dahe Daily): It’s necessary to punish those who have a bad credit record, but it’s dangerous to abuse this punishment mechanism. Exposure of personal information will affect those blacklisted students’ privacy and freedom.

From the perspective of banks, if they consider the problem from commercial interests, college students are potential clients in the future as these graduates are the bulk of future consumers. Therefore, when education loan defaults occur, banks are supposed to adopt more reasonable methods instead of exposing defaulters’ personal information to the public. By doing so, banks are actually putting themselves in a position that directly opposes college graduates and any mutually beneficial future relationship.

Students should act responsibly

Lin Weiping (Yunnan Daily): I believe most of the defaulters do not do this intentionally, but because they can’t find a job or have insufficient money. The difficulty may remain for some time. However, if they know