Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying [View all]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/business/student-loans-abroad-default.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YlA.veRR.QsN2zV4-5KgI&smid=url-share

Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying

A record number of student loan borrowers are in delinquency and default. Some are making the drastic decision to leave the country and abandon their loans.

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.

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Ms. Tully was on an income-based repayment plan, which allows many borrowers to have their remaining debt forgiven after 20 years of making qualifying payments. She was paying $60 per month when she defaulted. This amount, to many, may seem manageable. But for her, it remained psychologically burdensome.