LA Times
By Don Lee
March 5, 2024

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says it’s likely that as many as one out of four borrowers are carrying a past-due student loan balance. That’s a much higher rate of delinquency than previously thought.

This is what my hard work got me.

A message to John Kerry, Scott Brown, John Olver, and Barack Obama:

Dear Sir,

I’m writing to state my frustration about the lack of support from Congress to truly help reduce student loan debt. I would like Congress to pass legislation that would reduce the interest rates on all student loans past, present, and future to 3% or lower.

As a first generation college graduate who attended public universities and earned a BS and MEd., and who has been working for the past 15 years full-time and making on-time monthly payments towards my initial total student loan debt of $70,000, I still struggle to pay down the principal balance. Currently, the principal balance is at $65,000 after several years of paying $520/mo. The interest rate is way too high and is too blame!

I’m not asking for forgiveness of my debt. I am proud to pay my own way. And as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been making payments on-time all these years but my principal balance barely goes down because the interest rate is way too high. My payment mostly goes to interest, even after all these years of paying $520/mo.

Student loan interest rates are just way too high. Rates should be no higher than 3% yet they are at 6% and even higher. My federal interest rate on my consolidated loans started at 8.125%. Thankfully, after years of on-time and automatic payments, the federal lending partner (ACS) knocked it down to 6.5%. Even still that’s very high. I still can barely knock down the principal balance. I’m on schedule to pay off my student loans by 2034 at $520/mo. I will be 62 years old. That’s outrageous. It’s bad for the middle class and our economy. There’s no way to get ahead.

If Congress could pass legislation to reduce the interest rate to 3% or lower on all student loans, it would be a win-win situation. The lender would still get a good chunk of profit while the student borrower would have a little less struggle in paying down their principal balance, and thus, have a chance to achieve the American dream of a little bit of prosperity.

Please consider sponsoring such a bill that would lower interest rates on all student loans past, present and future. Thank you.

I graduated from a small private school in California. I have a BS in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. I got an excellent education. My parents could not afford to pay for college, and my school did not give out good financial aid, so I took out loans. I originally took out around 90k. I have 5 student loans, 4 of which are private.

When I first graduated college I moved to Portland, Oregon and worked a job which paid $9.00 dollars an hour because it was all that I could get (the job market up there is very bad). I had 6 months before the 4 out of 5 of loans started kicking in. I had my first mental breakdown in January of 2010 when my first payments were due, and they started around $500.00. I had no idea that it was going to be this much. I found another part time job, this one making $11.90 an hour. I worked six days a week and had to commute 35 miles for my jobs. I had to borrow money from my parents, grandparents, and roommates to get by, although it wasn’t really borrowing since I couldn’t afford to pay them back. I had to call two loan companies to change my payment plan so that I pay less now, and more later (meaning $150.00 now, and will eventually have payments of $450.00, and this is just for one loan!). By June of 2010, my 5th loan started kicking in, making my monthly totals $668.78. As my first part time job was as a teacher and ended right before summer break, I was back to one part time job. I then applied for food stamps, because all of my income was going towards student loans. I fed myself for the next few months on food stamps (thank god for that!).

Since my second part time job was technically a paid internship, I discovered that some loan companies allow you to defer during your employment. I was able to defer two private loans until the end date of my internship (August of 2010). My federal loan (Direct Loan) allowed me to defer for up to a year. The two other private loans wouldn’t help me. Once my internship was over I contacted my loan companies to let them know that I was now unemployed and was looking for work and may not be able to make full payments. They all were pretty helpful, or at least kind, except for Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo told me that even if I had $50.00 dollars left to my name, it should go to them. I made partial payments for about 3 months, thinking that as long as I paid something ($50.00 or $75.00 out of $150.00) that they would get off my case as I have called them many times to explain my situation and I could catch up once I had a job. They started harassing my co-signers (parents) and calling them every morning at 8am making threats. My parents aren’t in a good financial situation (also a lot of debt) and I woke up every morning feeling stressed and sick thinking that Wells Fargo would take action (over me being only $150.00 behind).

I moved back to California to live in my parent’s basement, since all the money that I was making was going straight to these companies and I couldn’t afford rent. I am so thankful that I have family that can help me in a time of need by providing shelter and assistance. If I didn’t have them, I don’t know what I would do. I have been pretty lucky in that I haven’t had much trouble finding work. After about 2 months (which I consider good) I found a job that pays over $19.00 an hour. However, with a monthly loan payment of $668.00 a month, I cannot afford to be independent and still can’t afford to live on my own. After taxes, 28% of my income goes to student loans alone. That is almost 1/3. I have been living in my parent’s basement for a year now, with no savings to show. I am 25 years old. I don’t know when or if I will be able to afford living on my own, especially in this economy.

I really had no idea what I was getting into, as loan payments did not become a reality until after college. I never experienced anxiety until the loan payments started, and I have been stressed ever since. At this rate, paying the minimum, I will pay off my loans in about 30 years (when I am 55). Having a large debt of 90k (not including interest) at 22 years old is scary and its even more than that today with interest applied. Although my borrowed amount was $89,061.22, since graduation (2.5 years) I have paid off over $10,000.00, and I still owe more than I borrowed with a current balance of $91,959.78. I have been busting my butt and have not even taken a dent in the money that I originally borrowed. I am not planning on ever buying a house, or a car, or having the “American Dream”. But hey, at least I am surviving and am healthy, right? I don’t think I would be where I am today without my college education, as I am in the field that I want to be, and really enjoy my job, but I definitely question my decisions. I always come back to telling myself “you can’t do anything about it now, so just deal with it”. I am trying to deal with it as best as I can.

This is what happens when you try to better yourself and get a graduate degree. You just dig yourself into a deeper hole. Every single day I hope for a miracle.

One of the founders of Occupy Student Debt takes to the airwaves! Stef, we have your back!

Need to Know, February 10, 2012: Student debt, college and religion

A recent submission:

The US Department of Education is now doing what would be considered to be fraud if any other business was caught doing this to clients. People currently in default and in the rehabilitation process are being screwed right now because of the DOE incompetence of getting the computer system upgraded. Many that have paid their 9 month fulfillment are having to continue to pay until DOE fixes their problem. I finished my 9 months, received no notice, no letter stating that I had to keep paying because they were not letting anyone out of default. Then wouldn’t you know it, I received a statement three months later stating I owed money to them, I called and was told that I have to now start the 9 months ordeal all over again because I didn’t make payments beyond what the agreement was. Talk about a raw deal. And this is going on to thousands right now.