OCCUPY STUDENT DEBT

Student debtor stories submitted by the 99%

Harvard Law was supposed to be the golden ticket

I wanted to be a lawyer my whole life, and not just a lawyer but a real mover and shaker…a representative of the people and a protector of their rights. So while my friends were out enjoying parties and their youth, I was working my butt off to bolster my transcripts and extra curriculars. I made my way into Cornell and graduated at the top of my class. My reward was my acceptance to Harvard Law. I knew I would have to work my way through school, and go into significant debt, but my dream was worth it. After all, I had always been assured that hard work and education paid off, and the financial advisers at HLS showed me lists of expected starting salaries well into the 6-figure range. What I didn’t count on however was developing a health issue during my 2nd year which would impact my ability to hold down a demanding job for several years, nor did I count on the job market collapsing so that when I was finally able to return to work full time, there would be no offers on the table. Now I hold a worthless diploma in one hand, and student loan bills totaling over $200k in the other. One loan is already in default, the other is not far behind. I’ve spent my last 3 years working at a job for which I’m massively overqualified, literally begging for (and being denied) raises and promotions to full-time status, not because of poor performance, but because there are enough people in line for my job that my employer has no incentive to provide me with better. My annual income is now less than I paid in tuition for a single year at school, and I cry myself to sleep nights wondering what happened to the life I had planned. Going to a top school was supposed to be a guaranteed investment in my future, but the payout disappeared when the lenders sunk our economy, and now the loans are a constant weight to drag me down…a weight I don’t see myself ever being able to shed.

Between July and September, Sallie Mae spent $550,000 lobbing Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, Federal Reserve System and Treasury Department.                                                 WHY???

Between July and September, Sallie Mae spent $550,000 lobbing Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, Federal Reserve System and Treasury Department.

                                                WHY???

Source thestreet.com

At 18, I wanted a career that would allow me to be creative, challenging, and still have a lot of fun.  After chatting with several people including a college admissions advisor and my uncle among them, I’ve decided to go into Game Software Programming.  It was a great field in designing games and what not and finally decided to attend Westwood College Online.  This way I could work part time and still attend college and become independent now living on my own.  In 2007, the advisor told me that the total program would cost $70,000 but not to worry because the average starting wage in the field was about $60,000 to $80,000; and at the time gas among other things (food, rent, etc) were much cheaper than now.  I had decided to go ahead with this and enrolled in August of 2007, the first two years were great.  In 2010,  the college started sinking, good professors that were always there for me were nowhere to be found including my good advisors both financial and academic.  Then lawsuits piled on the school and the college sent us letters saying it was all bullshit and they were getting them dismissed one by one.  My third and final year came and the classes got to be sooo time consuming that along with my full-time job that I had earned in the spring of 2010, I just couldn’t keep up with the course load and the time it required so I asked to be switched to a different major, business administration specializing in financial management or accounting for short.  The job I’m with is a seasonal lawn care company and struggled off and on working 12 to 14 hour days through the spring, summer, fall.  I was able to catch up in the winter term somewhat but with all of the failing classes I was on warning and the end of the winter term that if I didn’t take 6 classes I’d be dismissed from the school.  So I took 6 classes in the spring and I actually turn all of my focus to these classes and blew off work to stay afloat until week 7 of the 9 week term came.  I had gotten such a discouraging message from the finance department of Westwood College Online that I thought would never happen.  “You are not allowed any more sufficient funds since you have reached your maximum loan limits.  Therefore, you will need to secure private funds to continue admission with Westwood College Online.” I had called everyone I knew with the college and was put on hold for hours.  I called SallieMae to see what was going to happen and they said that they cannot say anything at this time because they weren’t allowed to.  The term ended and my email and student login account was gone the day after it ended.  I felt like someone used me for 4 years and racked up $78,000 in loans mixed between Federal and Private and another couple grand in Pell Grant and simply just kicked me out like that.  I had moved back into my parent’s house out of the city an extra 30 minutes in drivetime to work to save some money on rent and start paying my small credit card debt I had used in the past.  Finally got an email on my private account 6 months later (Oct ‘11 I believe) stating that SallieMae would be getting in contact with me to discuss loan payments.  Of course this email came from an auto-no reply address and so I resent this letter to every email address in the finance department of Westwood College Online that I could get ahold of asking for more information.  Nothing came, except for SallieMae’s phone calls and letters.  I talked to the lady on the first phone call and she told me that I had to pay $800 a month, I counter-argued that the college told me it would be no more than $200 at most.  We went back and forth for a few hours before she hung up on me.  She called back the next day and I told her that I demanded to speak to her supervisor, she said she wasn’t obligated to and hung up on me again.  The next day a man called back asking and I told him that I had spoken to a lady the last 2 days and that I cannot pay or afford $800 end of story.  He told me that such person had called but left messages and had not actually spoke to me, I corrected him and asked for his name, he hung up.  After being hung up on 3 times, I just watch and listen to these calls from SallieMae come through and has actually quite amused me that they are continuing to do so.  I’ve managed to send emails about payments and only being able to pay a certain amount and they return an email in a .pdf format stored on their website which I still don’t understand because it’s a pain in the ass to get to.  I’ve been laid off for the winter season of 2011 on Thanksgiving and have emailed SallieMae 5 times on how to get unemployment deferement or forbearance or on how to fix this situation.  5 times they’ve replied with the addresses of where I need to make my payment to and how to submit it.  Finally for the 6th email, a guy named Robert had replied explaining the different things I can do in this situation.  I did them all, requesting forbearance and unemployment deferment and also income base restriction.  Amazingly they’ve done everything until July of ‘12 to all the other loans except for 2 private loans which I still have to pay.  They still won’t say why those didn’t get approved.  They’re still asking for $450 a month.   I am 23 in April, $78k in loans and no degree whatsoever to show for it and Westwood College Online Credits have been denied by local area colleges.  I have also been turned down from about 50 job applications since Thanksgiving.  The lawncare job that laid me off, will start back up in March paying about $300 a week…

At 18, I wanted a career that would allow me to be creative, challenging, and still have a lot of fun.  After chatting with several people including a college admissions advisor and my uncle among them, I’ve decided to go into Game Software Programming.  It was a great field in designing games and what not and finally decided to attend Westwood College Online.  This way I could work part time and still attend college and become independent now living on my own.
 
In 2007, the advisor told me that the total program would cost $70,000 but not to worry because the average starting wage in the field was about $60,000 to $80,000; and at the time gas among other things (food, rent, etc) were much cheaper than now.  I had decided to go ahead with this and enrolled in August of 2007, the first two years were great.  In 2010,  the college started sinking, good professors that were always there for me were nowhere to be found including my good advisors both financial and academic.  Then lawsuits piled on the school and the college sent us letters saying it was all bullshit and they were getting them dismissed one by one.
 
My third and final year came and the classes got to be sooo time consuming that along with my full-time job that I had earned in the spring of 2010, I just couldn’t keep up with the course load and the time it required so I asked to be switched to a different major, business administration specializing in financial management or accounting for short.  The job I’m with is a seasonal lawn care company and struggled off and on working 12 to 14 hour days through the spring, summer, fall.  I was able to catch up in the winter term somewhat but with all of the failing classes I was on warning and the end of the winter term that if I didn’t take 6 classes I’d be dismissed from the school.  So I took 6 classes in the spring and I actually turn all of my focus to these classes and blew off work to stay afloat until week 7 of the 9 week term came.  I had gotten such a discouraging message from the finance department of Westwood College Online that I thought would never happen.  “You are not allowed any more sufficient funds since you have reached your maximum loan limits.  Therefore, you will need to secure private funds to continue admission with Westwood College Online.” I had called everyone I knew with the college and was put on hold for hours.  I called SallieMae to see what was going to happen and they said that they cannot say anything at this time because they weren’t allowed to.
 
The term ended and my email and student login account was gone the day after it ended.  I felt like someone used me for 4 years and racked up $78,000 in loans mixed between Federal and Private and another couple grand in Pell Grant and simply just kicked me out like that.  I had moved back into my parent’s house out of the city an extra 30 minutes in drivetime to work to save some money on rent and start paying my small credit card debt I had used in the past.  Finally got an email on my private account 6 months later (Oct ‘11 I believe) stating that SallieMae would be getting in contact with me to discuss loan payments.  Of course this email came from an auto-no reply address and so I resent this letter to every email address in the finance department of Westwood College Online that I could get ahold of asking for more information.  Nothing came, except for SallieMae’s phone calls and letters.  I talked to the lady on the first phone call and she told me that I had to pay $800 a month, I counter-argued that the college told me it would be no more than $200 at most.  We went back and forth for a few hours before she hung up on me.  She called back the next day and I told her that I demanded to speak to her supervisor, she said she wasn’t obligated to and hung up on me again.  The next day a man called back asking and I told him that I had spoken to a lady the last 2 days and that I cannot pay or afford $800 end of story.  He told me that such person had called but left messages and had not actually spoke to me, I corrected him and asked for his name, he hung up.  After being hung up on 3 times, I just watch and listen to these calls from SallieMae come through and has actually quite amused me that they are continuing to do so.
 
I’ve managed to send emails about payments and only being able to pay a certain amount and they return an email in a .pdf format stored on their website which I still don’t understand because it’s a pain in the ass to get to.  I’ve been laid off for the winter season of 2011 on Thanksgiving and have emailed SallieMae 5 times on how to get unemployment deferement or forbearance or on how to fix this situation.  5 times they’ve replied with the addresses of where I need to make my payment to and how to submit it.  Finally for the 6th email, a guy named Robert had replied explaining the different things I can do in this situation.  I did them all, requesting forbearance and unemployment deferment and also income base restriction.  Amazingly they’ve done everything until July of ‘12 to all the other loans except for 2 private loans which I still have to pay.  They still won’t say why those didn’t get approved.  They’re still asking for $450 a month. 
 
I am 23 in April, $78k in loans and no degree whatsoever to show for it and Westwood College Online Credits have been denied by local area colleges.  I have also been turned down from about 50 job applications since Thanksgiving.  The lawncare job that laid me off, will start back up in March paying about $300 a week…

Whoa! Sallie Mae just blinked!

Today, only a couple of hours after I delivered 77,000 petition signatures from Change.org users to Sallie Mae’s front door, the company issued a statement saying that it would start applying its $50 per loan forbearance fee to customers’ loan balances instead of simply pocketing the cash. They’re obviously hearing your voices loud and clear!

I want to recognize how big Sallie Mae’s shift is. Previously, the company had called this fee a “good faith deposit”, even though it wasn’t a deposit at all! After so many people doubted Sallie Mae could be moved even a little bit, this policy change certainly comes as welcome news.

But it still isn’t enough, and my campaign isn’t over. Their move today does nothing to help borrowers like me, who graduated into the worst job market for new grads since World War II. The unemployed, the underemployed, and others facing economic hardship have no extra money to pay this onerous penalty.

The fact is, there’s still no reason Sallie Mae should be charging its private loan customers this fee when it’s not charged to their federal loan customers. The United States federal government doesn’t think people need to leave a “good-faith deposit” when requesting a forbearance for financial hardship — why does Sallie Mae think this is necessary?

In fact, there are lots of questions Sallie Mae needs to publicly answer:

  • Instead of this half-measure, why doesn’t Sallie Mae go all the way to remove this onerous burden from its worst-off borrowers?
  • Does Sallie Mae still earn interest off the fees until they’re released to borrowers?
  • More importantly, do they get to continue counting the fees as cash on their financial books until the fee is applied to the loans?
  • The Associated Press reports that their new policy will be retroactive to January 1 of this year. Why not make it retroactive to when they began charging this fee? This doesn’t give me back the $300 I’ve already paid!
  • Why doesn’t Sallie Mae offer any forms of consolidation or income-based repayment to its student debtors?

It’s obvious to me that Sallie Mae isn’t at all serious about providing relief to distressed borrowers. Thankfully, there’s more you can do to push Sallie Mae to do the right thing:

  • You can call Sallie Mae spokeswoman Patricia Christel at (302) 283-4076 and tell her you want them to drop their unemployment penalty. Here’s a sample script you can use: My name is _____, and I’m calling because Sallie Mae needs to go all the way to help distressed borrowers. Drop the unemployment penalty now!
  • You can post a message to their Facebook Wall- here’s a sample message you can use:I won’t be fooled by Sallie Mae’s financial tricks and half-measures. If you’re serious about helping distressed borrowers like Stef Gray, you need to offer a real solution. Drop your unemployment penalty NOW! http://t.co/fiFCxMdG
  • You can also call them out on Twitter! Just post this message:No more tricks! If @SallieMae is serious about helping distressed borrowers, they’ll drop the unemployment penalty NOW! http://chn.ge/SallieMae

I understand that my student debt is my responsibility. It’s a debt I want to pay back. But when my mom told me that education was the key to my future, neither of us knew the game was so rigged against borrowers like me. No student considering college, or who’s in college now, should be duped into using Sallie Mae’s private financial products.

— Stef Gray

Well today at the Sallie Mae office in DC was fun!  Were you there with us today as one of our own delivered 76,000 petition signatures and gave a press conference? If not, don’t worry.  All the news crews were so you’ll see on the news tonight :) #HowWeRoll #WeStandWithStef #MoreUnitedThanEver

Well today at the Sallie Mae office in DC was fun!  Were you there with us today as one of our own delivered 76,000 petition signatures and gave a press conference? If not, don’t worry.  All the news crews were so you’ll see on the news tonight :)

#HowWeRoll #WeStandWithStef #MoreUnitedThanEver

Borrowed $53,000 10 years ago; owe $142,643.64 now

I borrowed $53,000 approximately from 1991 to 1996 to get a 4 year degree from a State College.

I moved out of the country for 2 years and was told that I could defer for that time without interest. They not only charged me interest for that time, they compounded it and the amount owed doubled. 

I have never been able to keep up with the full amount of the payments and have never made more than $40,000 per year since graduation. Usually about half of that is what I make per year.  I’ve tried working for small companies, started several of my own companies and do all I can to keep up with bills. My credit has always suffered and I have not been able to get business loans and need the cash flow to grow business.

I had a baby 9 months ago and am not working and we can’t afford day care so that I can work. I have started to try making some money at my touring business again and we live on my husband’s income of about $38 per year.

I recently did a Direct Consolidation of my loans and I owe $142,643.64. My payments are $1046 per month and I have deferred payments based on my income. I don’t ever see being in a position to pay this off.

The campaign is gaining strength as millions of student loan borrowers could be seeing the interest rates on their loans rise significantly unless Congress extends a rate reduction passed in 2007 and set to expire this July. While the current interest rate, based on the 2007 reduction, is 3.4 percent, the rate could double to 6.8 percent, adding more fuel to the fire of protests against student loans. As of Friday afternoon, nearly 70,000 people had signed the petition.                -Jimmy Kilpatrick, Editor and Chief of Education News  

The campaign is gaining strength as millions of student loan borrowers could be seeing the interest rates on their loans rise significantly unless Congress extends a rate reduction passed in 2007 and set to expire this July. While the current interest rate, based on the 2007 reduction, is 3.4 percent, the rate could double to 6.8 percent, adding more fuel to the fire of protests against student loans.

As of Friday afternoon, nearly 70,000 people had signed the petition.