New Jersey student loan program

[2][3] In 2016, the New York Times reported that the Authority's loans have "extraordinarily stringent rules that can easily lead to financial ruin".

The report cited a case where the death of a debtor was determined to "not meet the threshold for loan forgiveness", with a bankruptcy lawyer claiming “It's state-sanctioned loan-sharking[.]

The State of New Jersey is permitted to garnish wages, rescind professional licenses, disallow income tax refunds, and forfeit borrower's lottery winnings.

Notably, families’ credit has been damaged while being compelled to surrender their salaries due to agency regulations.

The catalyst appears to be, “the state depends on Wall Street investors to finance student loans through tax-exempt bonds and needs to satisfy those investors by keeping losses to a minimum.” The programs collection practices have been described as having within their toolkit “a cudgel that even the most predatory for-profit players cannot wield" and that is "the power of the state".