A college graduate has been branded a “loser” and a “whiny b—h,” after fleeing the US and defaulting on her student loans over her $60-a-month repayments.
Amanda Lynn Tully, 37, admitted she was “never financially stable” as she revealed how she hadn’t made any repayments in seven years since moving to the Czech Republic to escape $65,000 in federal student loans.
She reportedly made the drastic decision to abscond to Prague less than a year after graduating from the University of Oregon and failing to find a job with her master’s degree in historic preservation in 2017.
“I was never financially stable because I was never taught to be financially stable,” Tully, who also has a BA in art history from the Metropolitan State University of Denver, told the New York Times.
Tully said she was on an income-based repayment plan, which would have allowed her to have the remaining debt forgiven after 20 years of making qualifying payments.
Her repayment was just $60 a month, but she complained that even this payment was “psychologically burdensome,” the Times reported.
“The payments weren’t even paying off the interest, so it was frustrating,” Tully said.
While some sympathized for Tully, who said she spent her teenage years as a ward of the state of Colorado, many were stunned at her brazen actions.
One social media user compared Tully to the trend of entitled, downwardly mobile middle-class people shoplifting from stores such as Whole Foods, as reported by Curbed last month.
“This is just Whole Foods shoplifting. They fancy it a better kind of theft bc they’re educated elites and their reasons for doing it are more therapized than the average thief,” the X user wrote.
“But if you move to another country to escape a $60 a month payment, you’re a loser and a whiny b—h,” they added.
“The NYT has an uncanny ability to illustrate a ‘hardship’ story with people who are so unsympathetic that I end up actively rooting against them,” one X user wrote.
“I was already opposed to student loan forgiveness and now I’m radicalized all over again,” a second X user wrote.
Another pointed out that Tully appeared to be wearing designer headphones in her photoshoot for the Times.
“She couldn’t afford $60 a month but could afford Beats by Dre,” the X user wrote.
Almost 8 million of the 40 million borrowers with federal student debt have defaulted on their loans, according to recently-released figures from the Education Department.
However, borrowers who move abroad and stop making payments will likely see their credit scores plummet and make it far harder and more expensive for them to borrow money, acording to credit reporting agency Experian.
Tully has been working in Prague as an “E-learning content developer” for various companies since 2019, but describes herself as “open to work” on her LinkedIn profile.
She did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
