How I Beat Predatory Sallie Mae at the Student Loan Game

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/how-i-beat-predatory-sallie-mae-student-loan-game

Beginning when I was an 18-year-old university student, I took out four Sallie Mae “Tuition Answer” loans worth about $36,000 between 2006 and 2008 – which was more than twice as much as I earned working my way through college – so that I could attend the City University of New York’s Hunter College. It’s a relatively affordable school, but due to the deaths of both of my parents when I was younger and the fact that my job at a local clothing store paid only $7 per hour, I still needed money to make ends meet.

I felt uneasy signing the paperwork, but my school’s financial aid office was plastered with posters and pamphlets depicting smiling students whom Sallie Mae had allowed to follow their dreams and I was under the impression that they were benevolent. I had no idea that, without a cosigner, I’d end up with credit card-like interest rates, amongst a multitude of other problems.

Most people think of Sallie Mae as a purveyor of federally-backed student loans with low, government-mandated interest rates, regulated deferred payments and hardship waivers. And, looking back, the differences between the federal student loans and private, bank-backed student loans that Sallie Mae servies were definitely blurry – listed in the same pamphlets, referred to as “Sallie Mae” loans, marketed in the same way. You could even say that Sallie Mae bases the reputation of its other, more predatory student loan products on the strength of the reputation of the federal loans everyone knows them for. (Perhaps that’s why reports surfaced in mid-November that the Obama administration may remove Sallie Mae from federal loan-servicing.)

But after I finished my undergraduate degree in 2009 and earned a Masters degree in geography in 2011, I wasn’t able to find work. The field of computerized mapping had previously been booming, but entry-level tech jobs had dried up. I couldn’t even get a job housekeeping at a local motel. And unlike federally-backed student loans – which give borrowers the option of income-based repayment plans or deferring payments altogether in cases of financial hardship – private lenders, like the ones behind the loans Sallie Mae gave me, are under no such obligation and have no incentives to offer any repayment flexibility.

[MissB]

1. Folks should click on the link. That's a stunning

ending to a horrible student loan story. It's amazing that the author's debt went from $36k to $77k in three short years.

More amazing is the ending. Don't want to spoil it for anyone.

[Mbrow]

2. Great story!

Thanks for posting.

[TBF]

3. That is amazing (read the entire story) -

we have had good luck fighting creditor's lawsuits here in TX as well. We were over our heads just like the student in the OP. Often the bottom-feeders that end up with the claims (and harassing you at all hours) don't have standing or backup to prove their cases & one time we were even getting letters from an attorney who had been disbarred. The court dismissed that one quick.

[Heidi]

4. Kick!

[mfcorey1]

5. Will immediately share with my daughter who is being drained by

fluctuating loan payments from Sallie Mae.