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176 posts tagged student loans
176 posts tagged student loans
Who is YOUR Representative? Work with Occupy Student Debt and Forgive Student Loan Debt to petition EVERY Representative to support HR 4170. Start your own petition urging YOUR Representative to support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.
Dear Representative ________,
My name is _________, and as one of your constituents, I urge you to support H.R. 4170 The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. Like so many other young people, I borrowed money for school and I’m drowning in debt. I borrowed ________, paid ________ and still owe_____. With 2/3 of college students borrowing money for school and 1 out of 5 defaulting on their student loans, we clearly need serious and swift action. We are suffering and want to contribute to society but we’re drowning in debt.
Rep _______, please support ending indentured servitude and support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (HR 4170).
Current balance, $175,000. Original Principle was $120,000. Administered by Sallie Mae and National Collegiate Trust (American Education Services) I imagine in the next few years it will be a quarter million.
I’ve never been able to touch the principle since i started paying. I struggled finding a job for 2 years after school, and my interest skyrocketed during forbearance and deferment.
Now i finally have a well paying job as a graphic designer, and i still struggle. My job is very demanding, i work long hours, and usually have to take side work to make due. I mostly live paycheck to paycheck, my monthly payments equal around another month’s rent, about $1200. I also suffered two great family losses in one year, had to move, and had some health problems. Which put a huge financial burden on my life. Sallie Mae and National Collegiate Trust have no sympathy or understanding for their customers. At this point i’m so far behind payments, I have no idea how i’m going to catch up. I get about eight phone calls a day harassing me for money i don’t have, threatening to sue me, and unwilling to work around my pay schedule or income. It’s humiliating, demoralizing, and disruptive. This disturbance and added stress makes it difficult to concentrate on my work, and takes a toll on my general well being. I’ve even had the collections agencies (who are owned by the lenders) make harassing phone calls to my office, extended family, and even friends.
At 19, had i known my education was going to cost me over a quarter million dollars, i would have made other arrangements. But the schools are payed by these lenders to sell you these loans, and they sell that dream of success really well. My only hope now is that my family and I remain in good health and hopefully the laws change soon.
ALL DEBT, NO JOBS!
Occupy Student Debt working with the Backbone Campaign in Washington, DC
$80,000 of student debt. How about you?
This week we worked with The Backbone Campaign for the Student Debt Jubilee action in Washington, DC.
Follow us on TWITTER
——»> @OWSstudentDebt
By Denise Smith, Kasey Oliver, and Ryan Jacobi in ForgiveStudentLoanDocumentary.com
H.R.4170 Campaign - What every member should do to get involved in the H.R.4170 Campaign!
Pease register at the www.forgivestudentloandebt.com Website! Stay up to date on all the latest FSLD news and share your story and participate in the forums!
#1 Petitions!!!
Sign the following petitions created by Robert Applebaum, Esq., founder of forgivestudentloandebt.com, asking Rep. John Kline (MN), The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama to Support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (H.R.4170):
Please also sign the following petitions in support of H.R.4170 created by members of the student loan community:
#2
Weigh in at PopVox by clicking on “support” and send a message to your representative. (There is a character limit of around 1500 for your comments)
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr4170
#3
Go to OpenCongress and click the green “support” check mark, upper right side of page and send a message to your Representative and Senators—you also can print a copy for mailing.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h4170/show
#4
Mail a letter to your Representative strongly urging them to co-sponsor and support this bill! Tell them why you support H.R.4170, what its passage would mean to you personally and how it would benefit the economy!
Find contact Information: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
#5
Call your Representative and strongly urge them to co-sponsor and support this bill!
Tell them why you support H.R.4170, what its passage would mean to you personally and how it would benefit the economy!
Find Your Representatives/Senators at http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
#6 If there is are open seats in your state, contact the candidates to ask them what their position is and encourage them to support H.R.4170.
Look here to locate them: http://www.politics1.com/states.htm
#7
Email your friends, family members and everyone you know!
Send them this petition link:
Ask them to sign. Tell them your story and explain how H.R.4170 will benefit not only borrowers but also our economy!
#8
If you are on twitter, tweet the following message to your followers:
#9
If you are on Facebook, copy & post the following message on your wall:
#10
If you are on other social networking sites please reach out there as well. The more we reach out, the more likely we are to hit our goal of 1 million signatures!
#11 Ready to take a really BIG step? Write to every last Representative in Congress. Set a daily goal and work down this list:
…but we’re not rich, by any means.
I completed a BA and later an MA in English, and my loans totaled $42,000 when I graduated with my MA in 2008.
Undergrad loans: $28,000 original balance when consolidated (at 6.0% fixed) to a graduated repayment program in 2001. I knew when I signed the paperwork that I would eventually pay more than TWICE what I borrowed over the course of the 25 year repayment terms. I am okay with that, because I know that English doesn’t pay well, and if I managed to ever make a decent wage, I could always pay more than the minimum payment, but at least I could afford the minimum payment, which will never go above $285/mo. Current balance is still over $26,000.
Graduate loans: approximately $14,000 originally. My husband worked for the inexpensive, non-elite, middle-of-the-road, state school at which I got my MA. Instead of paying the full semester grad tuition of nearly $2300, I paid about $650, thanks to employee benefits. My husband worked full-time and I worked nearly full-time during my grad school years. I often taught three classes as an adjunct at a community college in a different state 35 miles away and took three classes at my university. I have three separate loans from grad school:
Subsidized loan (6.55%)—original balance: $6500 in 2008; current balance: $5163
Unsub loan (6.55%)—original balance: $5500 in 2008; current balance: $4942
Perkins Loan (5.0%)—original balance: $1990 in 2008; current balance: $764
My husband and I bought a house six months after I got my MA, and WE HAD NEARLY $60K COMBINED in student loans.
I am an adjunct English instructor who makes maybe $30K a year in a good year. Some quarters I bring home more than my husband.
How have we managed to pay down the balance of our loans?
We have only one car. My husband takes public transportation to work (his employers subsidizes 90% of his bus pass), while I drive between colleges to teach.
We bought a house that was priced $100K below the amount for which we were approved in 2008.
We don’t buy anything unless we can pay cash for it. That means we don’t have a big TV or a nice sound system. Our one car is seven (maybe eight?) years old. As much as I want the new iPhone 4S, I refuse to pay $200 for the upgrade because I don’t have the money, so I still have a broke-down, slow-ass iPhone 3 (it’s not even the 3G). As much as my husband wants the new xBox Kinect, we don’t have the money, so he makes do with the xBox we bought with our wedding money when we were married SIX YEARS AGO. We don’t travel—we moved across the country from our friends and family five years ago, and we haven’t been back. We’ve missed weddings and graduations and births and deaths and all kinds of big things, but we have a budget and we stick to it, as much as it sucks.
Most of our furniture is hand-me-down, including our two chests of drawers, dining room table, beds, and bed frames. We bought a couch and love seat when we first moved into our house, and it was $125 at a yard sale. It’s stained and has marker spots on it and the cushions are tearing at the seams, but we got $75 covers for them, and they look good as new.
The money we do have goes to pay off debt—student loans, the occasional credit card debt (since emergencies do happen and we’re still paying for them). And we save for the summers when I’m not teaching.
The point is, it’s not easy, and we’ve kept on top of it and avoided forebearances and deferments before things got out of control. I know it’s getting harder and harder to outright pay for an education, but it can be done with careful planning and research, and lots of hard work. I am looking at going back to get a PhD or a second Master’s, but if I do it, it will be at my own pace and I will pay cash as I go.
Does YOUR representative support Hansen Clarke’s Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (H.R. 4170)???
http://www.change.org/petitions/rep-mike-mcintyre-support-the-student-loan-forgiveness-act-of-2012-hr-4170