Student loans.... HOLY CRAP OH NO!!

justjoshingu

so I'm freaking out.
I went to graduate school and generated 200k in student loans. No problem, I have time and a job that can eventually pay for it. Last year I did a post graduate residency and loans are on hold during that time. Filled out the paperwork, everything was fine. Except it wasn't. Everything was deferred until dec 20th of 2010. or it should have been. When calling the Guaranteed loan corporation, they couldn't find me at all. After about an hour and a half it turns out they had changed my address, phone, and email address all to 1997. Old email, old phone, old address. Somehow the loans were split and sold to another company, who then sold them to another company. so the girl tells me in Dec. "part of your loans are about to default, do you have 37 thousand dollars to put your account up to date?"
WTF?!?!!?
After 3 days of paperwork, faxing, etc everything was settled. I was back into normal, the split off loan was deferred back to December, so I was no longer in default. And I've even been paying a little extra every month.
My mom calls to tell me I have a letter from dept of education. Well, guess which loan corporation, DIDN'T file all the paper work. SO now the govt sent me a bill for almost forty k. Due in two days.
So now I think I'm going to have to find a lawyer or something to fix all this. SERIOUSLY? Well, now I just feel effed. Defaulting on a student loan is like the one bad thing you can do. .... AND I filled all the paperwork and spent a lot of time working on it so this wouldn't happen??? Do you think they'll care??? uggg ... gonna go vomit now....

ZiggyStar

$200,000?? Wtf?

I did a commerce degree at uni and owe about $20,000. What degree did you do? Is that how much education costs in the States?

RYEzupSF

That is fucking terrible. Good luck fighting. Hopefully you don't have to get an attorney...

nuffingman

$200,000??
Did you have a really good time? You don't give your location so I'm not sure where you're from. It sounds like a stack of money and a few organisations that couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.
I hope you can sort it out.

Digital Twilight

When I graduate I will come away with about £20,000 worth of debt. That figure of $200,000 is just stupid but I guess that is pretty common in the states. Our loans are all done through one governmnet regualted body so there can be no 'selling' your debt to another company.

I hope you sort it out. Keep your chin up

OffHeGoes29

ZiggyStar wrote:

$200,000?? Wtf?

I did a commerce degree at uni and owe about $20,000. What degree did you do? Is that how much education costs in the States?

No, it doesn't need to cost that much. It just is just a matter of what situation that person is in or what they need money for. I got my degree for about $20,000 here in the states. I'm about to add to that with my masters :?

Jennytree

Fookin' hell - no wonder people are discouraged from getting an ejumacation. I got my degree for free - in fact, I qualified for a grant to go as my parents didn't earn much so I got a cheque that barely covered my rent. The joys of "free" education!

Can you not just go shout at the people looking for the money, or do what needs to be done?

The Juggler

justjoshingu wrote:

so I'm freaking out.
I went to graduate school and generated 200k in student loans. No problem, I have time and a job that can eventually pay for it. Last year I did a post graduate residency and loans are on hold during that time. Filled out the paperwork, everything was fine. Except it wasn't. Everything was deferred until dec 20th of 2010. or it should have been. When calling the Guaranteed loan corporation, they couldn't find me at all. After about an hour and a half it turns out they had changed my address, phone, and email address all to 1997. Old email, old phone, old address. Somehow the loans were split and sold to another company, who then sold them to another company. so the girl tells me in Dec. "part of your loans are about to default, do you have 37 thousand dollars to put your account up to date?"
WTF?!?!!?
After 3 days of paperwork, faxing, etc everything was settled. I was back into normal, the split off loan was deferred back to December, so I was no longer in default. And I've even been paying a little extra every month.
My mom calls to tell me I have a letter from dept of education. Well, guess which loan corporation, DIDN'T file all the paper work. SO now the govt sent me a bill for almost forty k. Due in two days.
So now I think I'm going to have to find a lawyer or something to fix all this. SERIOUSLY? Well, now I just feel effed. Defaulting on a student loan is like the one bad thing you can do. .... AND I filled all the paperwork and spent a lot of time working on it so this wouldn't happen??? Do you think they'll care??? uggg ... gonna go vomit now....

oh man that sucks dude. other than a late payment on a mortgage, a late payment on a student loan is most harmful to your credit.

i have nowhere near 200k but about 10 years ago i consolidated what i thought was all of my loans into one. turns out one wasn't included somehow. i did not find out until it went about 3 months without payment. ruined my credit for quite a while.........i would def at least put a note on your credit bureaus explaining your side of the story.

good luck with everything.

dunkman

$200,000!!!!

thats insane. :shock:

81

wow....

banks suck the biggest donkey any more.

i'm so glad mine are paid off.

best of luck.

chadwick

$200,000.00 in student loans, that is a large sum of money. what are you after all that schooling? broke?

i just mailed out my monthly payment the other week ago. $50.00

wanna trade?

pandora

I don't know I just pulled up 4 years in-state tuition at a finer college 135,000 plus extras
much more per year if in graduate school

I agree get your letters off to the credit bureau's and you might be pleasantly surprised
with the govt. They have been very good to me about a couple mistakes I've made in our business,
even taking away the penalties, if they hear from you and you explain your situation.

Don't worry, they will work with you on this I'm sure. Everything will be ok.
You could write Clark Howard too for advice.... he's the man!

eyedclaar

The OP better be the most educated person to have ever lived for that price. OP, when do you predict that Soylent Green will become a viable commodity? Looking to invest in the ol' stock market... plus the taste can't be beat.

OceanInDisguise13

A 200K's worth of student loans is not unheard of. I know people with more than that in loans because they attended medical school, so it's not that strange lol

I hope that you're able to get things sorted out. Hiring the lawyer is a good idea, hopefully they'll be able to make contact with everyone and you'll come out of this without any damage to your credit. Dealing with creditors and especially for student loans is a big headache, I feel sorry for you in this situation. Just hang in there and be patient. It will all take some time. People are not too motivated to work these days, so your file may sit there for a week before anyone works on it. Try not to overthink it and leave it in the lawyer's hands. I hope it all works out.

Indifference71

Wow. That is awful. Good luck taking care of that.

And I thought that 20K that I still owe was bad. This isnt the first time I'v heard of people getting fucked around with their loans being sold off to other companies. It doesn't seem right...

mca47

Most people who complete med school will have upwards of $200-250k in debt. Hope you can at least defer those past payments and start from the beginning. And once you land in a sweet residency program, those payments won't seem so bad.

I have about $15k left on my student loan...which isn't too bad. Though, I do think "What would I do with that $300/month I spend on those loan payments..."
That extra $ will be nice once they are paid off!!!

81

mca47 wrote:

Most people who complete med school will have upwards of $200-250k in debt. Hope you can at least defer those past payments and start from the beginning. And once you land in a sweet residency program, those payments won't seem so bad.

I have about $15k left on my student loan...which isn't too bad. Though, I do think "What would I do with that $300/month I spend on those loan payments..."
That extra $ will be nice once they are paid off!!!

once i paid mine off, i started paying more on the house mortgage. my 30 year mortgage is currently slated to be off in just under 17 years if i continue to pay what i am paying today. even if i reverted back to the min payment, it would be 26 months less than the full loan term. in translates into HUGE intrest savings, although one could argue you are better off paying it over the full term of the loan and investing those extra dollars.

iamica

Wow, how awful. Those guys were the ones who messed up the paperwork and didn't contact you, so it's not your fault. I'd definitely get a lawyer if I were you.
And I thought my student loan debt of $22K was bad... :?

MFCarissa

I received a letter from my alma mater today that just completely screwed me over. I graduated with my bachelor's in 3.5 years. I originally applied to their accelerated nursing school, was told I qualified, but my "priority date" wasn't far back enough, and I could try again text time.

Fast forward to now. I worked about 7 months at the USDA and was laid off in November. I figured my priority date must be awesome, and I knew I qualified, so I spent the $40 to apply again. Today I got a letter saying that they couldn't consider my application, because Nursing was not declared as my major. Not true. As a junior, I went in-person to add Pre-Nursing as my second major. So I called them to tell them this. The lady on the phone said since I was no longer taking classes, they removed Nursing as a major on my transcripts. I never okay-ed this, and they never bothered to inform me or tell me I needed to fix this before I spent my money applying to their program. Not to mention the extra classes I paid for (and aced) when I was an undergrad, to keep Nursing as an option.

I will probably be attending another accelerated Nursing school or graduate school in the fall, and my old school will never ever receive even a penny from me after my loans are paid off. It's kind of off topic from the original post, but I'm just livid and needed to vent. I put finding a new job on the back burner, because I figured I was a shoe-in for this program. Ugh.

stargirl69

That is utterly outrageous ... there must be somewhere you can go to get help ... how is it possible for a company to "sell" a loan to another company ... is this the American system? Or I am just naive?

RKCNDY

stargirl69 wrote:

That is utterly outrageous ... there must be somewhere you can go to get help ... how is it possible for a company to "sell" a loan to another company ... is this the American system? Or I am just naive?

yeah, they companies can sell your loan (at least for mortgages)...our original mortgage company sold our loan to another company, which then went bankrupt, so then another bank had to take our loan, and then they went bankrupt....we've had 4 different mortgage companies in the last 6 years...all of it none of our doing.
All of the school loans and debt have pretty much made me really think over going back to school over and over and over again....such a sad thing.

JOEJOEJOE

financial institutions "selling" debt instruments is worldwide. Many mortgage companies issue mortgages simply to make money on the fees, and then wholesale a bunch of them at the same time.

Government bonds, corporate bonds, student loans, structured settlements, mortgages....everything moves around.

The Juggler

stargirl69 wrote:

That is utterly outrageous ... there must be somewhere you can go to get help ... how is it possible for a company to "sell" a loan to another company ... is this the American system? Or I am just naive?

naive.

stargirl69

The Juggler wrote:

stargirl69 wrote:

That is utterly outrageous ... there must be somewhere you can go to get help ... how is it possible for a company to "sell" a loan to another company ... is this the American system? Or I am just naive?

naive.

Thank you Yoda !

justam

What in the world did you study that you thought $200,000 was an acceptable amount of loans to get?
:geek:

JOEJOEJOE

justam wrote:

What in the world did you study that you thought $200,000 was an acceptable amount of loans to get?
:geek:

Hopefully "Debt Avoidance" !!


student loans are not dischargable through bankruptcy.

tinkerbell

stargirl69 wrote:

The Juggler wrote:

stargirl69 wrote:

That is utterly outrageous ... there must be somewhere you can go to get help ... how is it possible for a company to "sell" a loan to another company ... is this the American system? Or I am just naive?

naive.

Thank you Yoda !

You're not naive, your just not American. This doesn't happen all over the world, well definitely not here anyway. Mortgages are all done through banks with insurance systems in place with our government, and our student loans are done through our Inland Revenue (tax department) with no interest charged unless you leave the country.

stargirl69

tinkerbell wrote:

You're not naive, your just not American. This doesn't happen all over the world, well definitely not here anyway. Mortgages are all done through banks with insurance systems in place with our government, and our student loans are done through our Inland Revenue (tax department) with no interest charged unless you leave the country.

Yep pretty much system here too Tinks

haffajappa

ZiggyStar wrote:

$200,000?? Wtf?

I did a commerce degree at uni and owe about $20,000. What degree did you do? Is that how much education costs in the States?

International students pay like 10 x more than we other students do at uni (which is still a lot)
And apparently, its STILL cheaper for US Students to study here rather than south of the border :shock:

PJ_Lukin

ZiggyStar wrote:

$200,000?? Wtf?

I did a commerce degree at uni and owe about $20,000. What degree did you do? Is that how much education costs in the States?

34K tuition, 16K room and board, 2-3K misc. expenses....per year. Welcome to NYC University expenses.

number1PJfan

I racked up about 38K for 8 years of college--5 years of undecided and then 3 more when I finally decided what in the hell I could do to get out of the godforsaken place. I have been paying for 13 years now and my balance is still upwards of 23K. I don't think I will ever see the end. Those three degrees I got out of it don't really amount to a hill of beans in the field of education. They give me no bargaining power. Everybody gets paid the same on the pay scale. It's based on experience and level of education, and that is that, no room for wiggle.