Damn Student Loans

i know it has been a long time ago, but as i read your comments,i
think back when my husband and i first started. we thought when
we finally made 10k a year, we were rich. i wish we had the opportunites that you young people have today. the information is
out there, read, research, talk to successful people. own up to
your responsibilites. you made the debt, pay it. stop whinning.

does "refinancing" just mean getting a consolidation loan? If you do this, can you still defer if you lose your job? who is the best person to do this through, or are they all basically the same (ie: what is the difference b/w salle mae, direct loans (government run) and collegeloans.com?)

sorry for all the questions.

My loans are gonna default in a few weeeks because then it will be 270 days past due.

dude get one (1) forbearance, otherwise it'll be a pain in the ass

i don't think you can get a forebearance for longer than 6 months

Not true at all -- there are lots of forbearance types, lots of them up to 12 months, depending on your lender.

I doubt Ian would be sharing this bummer if he hadn't exhausted most of the obvious options, so there's not much to say except that that REALLY sucks, and I'm REALLY sorry...

...but on the other hand, dude, don't let it happen! Defaulting on a student loan will screw you thoroughly and for a long time, practically like a minor bankruptcy. Like potential wage-garnishing, can't get certain jobs in certain states, credit-fucked, can't apply for loans for any future schooling, government won't give you any money (even your tax refunds), royally screwed, PLUS -- more serious than any of that -- you'll suddenly owe the entire balance of your loans on a pay-right-now COLLECTION basis, so in addition to the original credit-screwing, you'll also have collection agencies calling you up and demanding what I assume will be thousands of dollars on the spot.

That probably doesn't help with the bummer, so, you know ... that so sucks!

Okay, but dude: seriously, spend every second of the next two weeks bugging and begging the crap out of everyone involved to avoid it! They're actually pretty helpful with keeping you from defaulting, in part because they don't want to sell your debt at a loss, and in part because the law makes them be. So:

1) go after ANY forbearance time you have left, even if it's only a few months -- that still sets back the clock on default
2) see if you have any options with consolidating the debt off to another lender, even if it's kind of a crap deal -- you're WAY better off starting over on worse terms than defaulting! and I'm guessing your mailbox is stuffed full of offers: check to see if any of them aren't too skeezy
3) your mailbox is probably also full of letters from student assistance non-profits. call every one of them and see what they can do for you.

Honestly, if you set aside a weekday and spend the entire day on the phone calling everyone you possibly can ... you will spend a lot of time on hold and maybe have to swallow a shit interest rate, but I'm pretty confident you can keep from defaulting! Just don't get all stressed out and figure you're screwed -- I've kinda screwed myself up assuming that in the past, but if you just keep on everyone's ass, you can get out of it.

P.S. Thank you for reminding me to double-check that my stuff is in order!

PPS -- Sorry, I said COLLECTION agencies, but that may not actually be true, and instead you will have THE GOVERNMENT on your ass about this stuff. I do not know exactly how it works, and I don't ever want to know exactly how it works, and I don't ever want YOU to know how it works, seriously.

ian: IF you can, can you make at least ONE payment to them by the deadline? i am not entirely sure if this is so, but if you can do that then that MAY delay the loan servicer from defaulting (for another month, perhaps).

nabisco... (you guessed it) otm!

there is usually something you can do. if you call them and explain and show that you would like to work something out so they eventually get paid, they should work with you. i don't have firsthand experience with this exact situation, but i think they are generally willing to help when you step forward and ask what you can do to keep this from getting worse.

all that scary forbearance/loan collection stuff doesn't apply to people in the uk does it?

is it worth signing this: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/student-loans-98/
or would i just be wasting my time? i mean, do online petitions ever achieve anything and does the premise of this petition have any basis in law?

one of the best days of my life was the day the nz government decided to make student loans interest-free (about 2 years ago, i think). there are conditions - they only remain interest-free if you live in nz. but my loan was skyrocketing with interest, esp because the first time round i didn't qualify for an allowance, and my parents could in no way afford to help me out. the second time, when i went back at 23, i qualified for an 'independent circumstances' allowance which made my life a whole lot easier.

i'm basically just living in denial of the $35-40k loan i'm going to one day have to repay.

just in case anyone was wondering, i dropped a check in the mail today for about half the amnt owed. i sold most of my remaining CDs. e_e

i think i'm gonna pay mine off within the next 18 months - that'd be ten years after graduating by then.

Congrats, Ian. You're better off.

Umm, also: where are you getting decent money for used CDs? I'm tempted to sell off a whole stack of mine, mostly because I've become SO LAZY that instead of getting up from my computer and spending 10 minutes finding an album on the shelf, I tend to just download it.

i sold em to the store i work at. academy in williamsburg. we don't really pay particularly more for CDs than anywhere else. they're not really our main source of business and we only have limited space. academy on 18th street might be better suited to your needs.

ian: does your loan servicer offer income-contingent/sensitive repayment plans? if they do then it won't solve your problem with any payments that you have already missed, but it MAY help with future payments.

I paid mine off last month, fantastic.

Worst experience was when I was teaching. The state legislature offered to wipe clean all the loans of teachers in schools like ours (bad ones). However, there was one year when if you had originally received your loan you were shut out. (something to do with the legislature not approving funding that year.) Guess when I had gotten mine?

xpost: they're sending me some forms to fill out to see if i qualify for any kind of low scheduled payment plan. but i am not optimistic cuz i make more than 1100/month.

i really have no excuse for this, and i vow never to get this far behind my payments EVAR again.

but i am not optimistic cuz i make more than 1100/month.

But that's like, what, 13k a year? Surely that would qualify you. You have to eat!

i think 1100 is their cutoff for significant lenience; i make closer to 1500.

Damn, they're cut-throat.

http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2008/04/14/daily53.html

Hey so my lender (of stafford student loans) has "suspended offering our private consolidation loan program". A friend of mine has said, cryptically, that I can consolidate with whoever, no matter who my original lender was. Looking at citibank's webpage, it seems that they have a program for consolidating private loans--stafford loans can't count as private, can they?. And anyway, should I bother trying to consolidate?

To put it another way: my payments are about to kick in, and I can't pay the amount due by a long shot. What's the best way to lower my payments without getting screwed?

http://epguides.com/FallandRiseofReginaldPerrin/logo.gif

wrong thread?

Ah, I see; the internet has indicated to me what you are implying.

Americans?

i am not 100% sure, i just remember being warned against loans through banks because they may change interest rates on you, whereas anything gov't -related is a fixed rate. i'm not sure if that applies to consolidations, though.

^^^Nah, I think it does (I'm trying to school myself on this somehow)--I'm at a fixed rate now, but consolidation could get me a lower rate, albeit one that can fluctuate over time. I'm more concerned with extending my overall payment period (say from 10 year to 20), thus lowering my monthly payment, without hugely ballooning my total payment.

pls advise me, financial geniuses

should i stop paying my student loanz

stop as in take a forbearance, or stop as in whatcha gonna do about it?

forbearance helped me out, can't remember how you qualify

Often times, you can just apply for the forbearance (on the phone) and its done.

Other times, you may need to pay some sort of fee for the forbearance to kick in.

Its not a bad idea, but it may extend the life of your loan by capitalizing interest into the principle. Or something like that.

the feds gave me a year forbearance which i'm still in. the private loans gave me 6 months, and after that they said no more. so i'm paying those again. but i want to stop as in whatcha gonna do about it look at the economies bro.

law school loans are brutal

They may have some additional special-hardship forbearance, beyond the regular voluntary kind.

What's annoying, economy-wise, is that there's no credit available to consolidate separate loans -- i.e., someone who just got out of school could wind up paying 4 separate minimums on 4 individual years' loans, and be more or less screwed w/r/t consolidating them, even at terrible or shady rates.

does anyone know what total US student loan indebtedness adds up to? if it's wall street bailout money size, i say, listen here, barry -- government pays our debt off, we save the economy by spending money at local businesses

This is a timely revive, as it suddenly struck me today that I have to start paying off my grad school loans ($70K) in June. I suppose I better look into consolidating.

I wish you serious not-just-bitter-sarcasm good luck with it, cause it's just ... so inopportune, timing-wise

Will the academic tuition bubble ever burst?

Ha, thanks Nabisco. I'm really crossing my fingers for a few jobs I'm applying for at the EPA, because then I could apply for a student loan repayment program on top of what I'll be paying off anyway.

my life would be perfect without any student debt. everything else is in order.

did you expect to be making more money in law at this point, or is the debt load for law school so high that only the 6-figure big lawfirm guys able to keep up?

#2

Will the academic tuition bubble ever burst?

I think the problem is that things have been set up so that it really does require $40,000 (or whatever) per student to keep the institution at status quo. So it's not a bubble that can pop without lots and lots of other things changing.

Yeah, my impression of the problem is that the wide availability of student credit has created or at least helped fueled a kind of arms race between schools -- since cost-competition is less important (since no one really notices what they're paying until the loans come due), schools try to outdo each other in programs and services and "quality of life." Students have come to expect a lot of things that would probably be hard to provide at lower costs.

Exactly. Nice dorms, new buildings every year, events etc. - a lot of the cost of an undergrad education has very little to do with the actual education part.

If it weren't for credit, there would be a good possibility that good students wouldn't be able to go to the schools they couldn't afford, and the high costs could actually hurt the institution. At the moment? Not really.

These decisions are difficult to make too. Is it worth going $50,000 in debt to go to private school X to get diploma X? Sometimes it is and some people come from states w/ crappy public schools. It's a life gamble.