Online social networking has skyrocketed in popularity and utility over the past few years, at the same time outstanding student debt has passed the $1 trillion mark and triggered talk of a crisis. As digital natives consider creative ways to pay down their debt burdens, options have emerged that until recently did not exist. Using online social networks and private donors in place of traditional financial institutions, borrowers now can refinance, bargain, crowd-fund or wage-garnish their loans away—unorthodox, but relatively untested, ways of dealing with an industry has been stagnant for decades.