Just Another Scam?
A new book examines the parasitic nature of student loans.
By Ben Miller
February 25, 2009
(iStock photo)In 1998, Alan Michael Collinge graduated with three engineering degrees from the University of Southern California. He also left school with $38,000 in student loan debt. After three years of struggling to make loan payments, Collinge defaulted on his debt in 2001. By mid-2005, he owed $103,000. Rather than sinking under the weight of so much debt, Collinge began obsessively researching how the $75-billion-a-year federal student loan system works. He also founded Student Loan Justice, a website where other borrowers could share their horror stories.
Collinge has now written a book on the subject. The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History—and How We Can Fight Back, released February 1 and published by Beacon Press, combines both his research and testimonials from Student Loan Justice to show how loan companies, schools, and even the federal government can exploit the federal student loan system to earn large profits while burying borrowers under unmanageable debt loads.
Collinge argues that congressional action over the past decade has turned federal student loans into a lifelong burdensome debt. One way this was done was by removing basic consumer protections, such as making it virtually impossible for student loans to be discharged via bankruptcy. This put student loans in the same category as overdue child support or unpaid taxes, rather than treating them as a form of consumer debt, such a car loans. Making matters even worse is that federal student loans also have onerous collection methods—meaning delinquent borrowers can see their wages, tax refunds, and social security garnished, get harassed at their workplace and home by collection agencies, and pay exorbitant collection fees that substantially increase their debt burden.
These are provocative points, but also rather complex ones. Fortunately, The Student Loan Scam does an excellent job of putting a human face on the borrowers who are trapped under mountains of debt, and it makes a convincing case for why students should think twice before taking out student loans. Whether Colligne’s book works as a whole, however, depends on what the reader hopes to get out of it, because his treatment of student-loan policy could have benefited from more subtlety. As a provocative warning about the dangers of student loans, The Student Loan Scam is well worth a read. But those hoping for a wonkish book that delves into the details of why student loans are a rip-off and suggests an alternative way for Americans to pay for college may find themselves disappointed.
Collinge relays several stories that underscore how bad student loan debt can get for borrowers. There’s Robert, who failed out of law school owing $42,000 for his postsecondary studies. He’s made $50,000 in payments and held the debt for far longer than the standard 10-year repayment period, yet still struggles to make his monthly interest payments, let alone put a dent in the principal he owes. Or Lorraine, who saw the debt she took on to go back to school following her husband’s death nearly two decades ago skyrocket eight-fold. Now she is forced to siphon money from her social security check to cover her payments.
Far and away the most engaging parts of the book, anecdotes like these underscore the terrifying ways a student loan, supposedly the key to higher education and a better life, can instead become an oppressive and life-ruining burden. They also reveal some of the unethical tactics collection companies and lenders use to hound borrowers, such as when they falsely claim to be from the Department of Education—a direct contradiction of existing collection laws. On top of shady practices like this are the collection costs of over 20 percent that borrowers who default must pay on their loans.
On the policy side, it is surprising to see Collinge highlight the dangers of federal student loans, because they are traditionally seen as the safest way to borrow for college. These include Stafford and PLUS loans, among others, and are either made directly by the government or by private entities in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program. Either way, borrowers receive a fixed interest rate and special repayment options based upon income or an agreement to take a job in public service. (This is in sharp contrast to non-federally guaranteed private loans, which have high variable interest rates and almost never have favorable repayment terms.) Collinge discusses how, despite these favorable terms, federal borrowers are still subject to incredibly high collection costs, are often lied to or have trouble getting a straight answer about their loan status, and face harassment from companies trying to collect on loans.
But Collinge is not solely concerned with the erosion of consumer protections or the flawed fee structure of student loans. He devotes four of his nine chapters to exposing the people and entities that profit from the plight of student-loan borrowers, and how they do so. His rundown includes questionable collection practices by the giant lender Sallie Mae and its affiliate USA Group; members of Congress who have received generous campaign donations from FFEL lenders; financial aid officials at colleges and universities who took payments from loan companies to recommend their products to students; and several lenders who improperly billed the Department of Education for millions of dollars in subsidy payments.
Discussing the “villains” of the student loan program in depth certainly makes for good reading, though the attacks are uneven. While the discussion of Sallie Mae’s illegal collection practices is well done, a chapter complaining about the Virginia-based company because a top executive tried to buy the Washington Nationals takes too much of a general anti-corporatist tone to be effective. In other cases, Collinge’s points would have benefited from more accuracy and subtlety. For example, he criticizes the Department of Education because it makes money on every dollar it collects from a defaulted student loan. But this isn’t entirely true—that figure excludes most collection costs, and isn’t discounted to reflect that a dollar collected 20 years down the road is worth less than one collected today.
This lack of subtlety is not the only problem with the policy-oriented parts of the book. Collinge never clearly outlines the structure of the federal student loan system and how its various entities interact. As a result, readers unfamiliar with the loan programs may find themselves confused. He also has a habit of combining federal and private student loans in his discussions, making it difficult to tell which he is addressing. For example, a chapter on policy recommendations often combines the two issues under the same heading. The recommendations can also be hit or miss in other ways. Restoring some consumer protections, limiting repayment based on income, and discussing the rising price of college seem like good ideas. Reducing degree requirements to make graduating a quicker process does not.
Overall, Collinge is a very capable chronicler of the horror stories produced by the United States’ seriously marred student-loan system. He is less effective when he’s trying to relate the ins and outs of the rules and regulations that constitute that system. As a result, The Student Loan Scam works better as a series of cautionary tales and human interest stories than it does as the foundation for a policy argument. But given the sheer number of people whose lives are plunged into financial ruin simply because they want to pay for higher education, the book still serves an important function.
Ben Miller is a program associate in the education policy program at the New America Foundation. The views expressed in this piece are his own.
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You seemed to miss the point about his book. The whole industry has been changed from the original intention of the Higher education assistance act, from one that helped students to one that preys on students.
Go to my blog and look at the archives. We the members of SLJ have written a 27 item call for reform, stating clearly what must be done to fix this problem.
We are not just whining about the problem, we are trying to find viable solutions to it.
Your article suggests Alans book is a scam in and of itself. It is not. It is an eye opener for many people, and a way to rally the troops before another generation of students gets caught up in the worst scam ever imposed on the American people.
— Mac Wildstar - Feb 25, 11:35 PM - #A scam eh? Let me show you a real scam, that goes by the name of Sallie Mae. In the last 7 years I’ve paid $106,000 on a $60,000 loan amount, and Sallie Mae still claims I owe just over $98,000. Explain to me how a ten dollar book is a scam compared to that. Hmmm? Yeah, that’s what I thought! Nothing but silence.
— Brian - Feb 25, 11:49 PM - #By the way, my comment was directed at Ben Miller, not at Mac Wildstar.
— Brian - Feb 25, 11:56 PM - #I would also like to add to my previous post that , when I took out my student loan I was told that I would have the option to consolidate/or 30 year repayment plan. Those options no longer exist now that my debt is due.. Can someone please tell how this is considered fair?
— Joe L - Feb 26, 10:07 AM - #We must put pressure on the Obama administration and not let up! Now is our best hope to restore bankruptcy protection. I realize there will be income sensitive programs in the near future and other programs that help. However, the BOTTOM line is that if someone qualifies for bankruptcy, especially chapter 7, then that person should have the right to include ALL student loans! The intent of a chapter 7 bankruptcy should be and traditionally has been to give a person a fresh new start so that person is not an indentured servant.
Currently, student loans make people indentured servants. Moreover, while pay it off programs sound good and they are good for certain people, the bottom line is that they create a system of indenture.
It would be no different from if they said, no matter what you may not discharge credit card debt, but you can work for the credit card company an extra 20 hours a week to pay it off. Alternatively, we have “High needs” in our customer service department, so if you agree to work in our customer service department for 10 years then we will forgive the debt.
Does anyone think that the above scenario is acceptable? If not, the why do you think that a scenario in which the government says,...if you agree to be a school teacher in the inner-city and deal with gangs and problem children for 10 years then we will forgive the debt is okay? Or, if you agree to be a nurse in a high need area… etc etc.
If someone files bankruptcy, then that person should be able to include all loans. Generations before did this and the US did not come to an end. If fact, the people of the 60s, 70;s 80’ etc who filed bankruptcy and included student loans went on to use the savings to buy a house, feed their family, buy cars etc. It could be argued that by not paying their student loans they not only helped themselves, but the economy.
One more thing, Obama should make the change retroactive, so that people like me who have already filed get to have true relief. I am sure that I am not the only one who has filed bankruptcy but is still drowning in student loan debt.
— Bob - Feb 27, 01:55 PM - #The Reagan Administration turned education into profit motive by making the very thing universities do— public doman scholarship RESEARCH— under the guise of education into a for profit venture, making the academic a venture capitalist at Federal expense. But in the meantime, the academic’s safe harbor, the university, has become increasingly (by now maybe even totally) dependenedt on TUITION as operating capital. Evolving from the research center desguised as the educational center to the for profit venture capitalist’s base, the campus has become utterly prohibitive in the cost of tuition to maintain its operation. What’s worse, there is no freedom of choice for the prospective students. Just as officials scare you into staying in public school with threats of truancy penalty, they threaten you into going to college by warning you that you need it because it alone is the place where you make up for 12 lost years in “lower” education with 4 years of “higher” education. Without college you are deemed “uneducated” and inelligible for professional schools. Everywhere else in the word, a high school degree is the end of the general education you need to be considered “educated” and you go on to professional school or the labor market as an educated person ready to learn your trade. Here a high school grad can only go to Iraq or Afghanistan. So, in fear of inability to support themselves, young Americans hock their lives to the hilt because they are told that with a college degree you start high and move higher. Actually, a US college education is like a Euro high school education. You can’t go on to professional school without a Bachelor’s degree. But with a degree only, the jobs you get are the same as gets an illegal alien at McDonald’s…except that you are in hock for $250,000 at 6% interest if you’re lucky. College prepares you for nothing that the first 12 years could not have done for you had they not been geared to the lowest common denominator (who may quit at 16 y/o but you keep learning as if you were him/her).
In colleges pedagogy is besides the point in many universities. As I was told mid-last centruy: IF YOU CAN’T GET IT ON YOUR OWN, YOU CAN’T GET IT.
And then, I wonder what is it that they impart to you that’s worth $250,000?
What I see happening now is that students admitted to the State University choose instead to do their Freshman and Sophmore years in a Community College, where pedagoy is the sole standard for tenure and tuition is about half of what you pay after transfering to the State U to finish your Junior and Senior years (rarely can you finish in 4 or 5 years nowadays). So all the help Obama promises to those who want to go to college is not the issue. The issue is: WHY WASN’T I TAUGHT ALL THIS CRAP BY THE END OF HIGH SCHOOL? The answer, of course, is that teachers from K to 4th grade just want to get you to stop spitting at others from the top end and defacating on the floor from the bottom end. That’s called “socialization.” For that they think they are entitled to $60,000 a year + benifits AND TENURE TOO! And, the Teacher’s Colleges think they are entitled to $250,000 for getting you “qualified” for that job. Your college Freshman year is such a blow of overload— with chemistry, physics, biology, calculus and English— that about 33% of the best school’s hand-picked Freshmen drop out. For the others, as they used to say in the 60s, the campus is a “sandbox” that, in some cases, even sells beer at the student center bar. I would imagine that if most universities put the $ millions they put into “student activites” into educational assistance, you wouldn’t have so many drop outs. But academia has neither responsibility, nor authority, nor accountability. They just share the tenured professorial salares and pensions with the administrators because both are sooooo necessary. There’s no contractual obligation for classes to be “relevant” to how you will pay back the student loans. So, money lenders like Fanny Mae, Freddie Mack and the Suprano Family all figured: Heeeey, if universities are such big crooks pretending that they educate, why can’t we be usurers pretending that we are helping with loans?
Bottom line. Given what garbage is American lower education, until it is fixed, college should operate as if a culpability no-contest suit settlement by the state as reminution for wasting 12 years of your life forcing you to attend its “schools.” To afford that, colleges that do pedagogia should not be research institutes in disgiuse. Those who know how to handle a micropippete with a steady hand should do genetic research; those that can explain, engage and fix attention, should be teachers. By separating the two, the cost of teaching will drop by more than half—- OF COURSE, THE BAR WOULD BETTER BELONG OFF, NOT ON, CAMPUS. Learning centers should replace student centers “where a kid can be a kid”... we already have CHUCK E. CHEESE for that. Instead, the older ex-students who can’t find work or can’t afford tuition repayment, should be allowed to work it off as free tutors, instuctors, lab aids, etc. to help the next generation get a cheaper higher education to make up for their non-existent lower-education. In the end, more student loans can be payed back in services more effectively than by FBI chasing down grads, n’est pas?
— DE Teodoru - Feb 27, 06:19 PM - #SORRY, JUST NOTICED SPELLING....CAN’T TYPE.
CORRECTION BELOW
The Reagan Administration turned education into profit motive by making the very thing universities do— public domain scholarship RESEARCH— under the guise of education into a for profit venture, making the academic a venture capitalist at Federal expense. But in the meantime, the academic’s safe harbor, the university, has become increasingly (by now maybe even totally) dependent on TUITION as operating capital. Evolving from the research center disguised as the educational center to the for profit venture capitalist’s base, the campus has become utterly prohibitive in the cost of tuition to maintain its operation. What’s worse, there is no freedom of choice for the prospective students. Just as officials scare you into staying in public school with threats of truancy penalty, they threaten you into going to college by warning you that you need it because it alone is the place where you make up for 12 lost years in “lower” education with 4 years of “higher” education. Without college you are deemed “uneducated” and ineligible for professional schools. Everywhere else in the word, a high school degree is the end of the general education you need to be considered “educated” and you go on to professional school or the labor market as an educated person ready to learn your trade. Here a high school grad can only go to Iraq or Afghanistan. So, in fear of inability to support themselves, young Americans hock their lives to the hilt because they are told that with a college degree you start high and move higher. Actually, a US college education is like a Euro high school education. You can’t go on to professional school without a Bachelor’s degree. But with a degree only, the jobs you get are the same as gets an illegal alien at McDonald’s…except that you are in hock for $250,000 at 6% interest if you’re lucky. College prepares you for nothing that the first 12 years could not have done for you had they not been geared to the lowest common denominator (who may quit at 16 y/o but you keep learning as if you were him/her).
— DE Teodoru - Feb 27, 06:35 PM - #In colleges pedagogy is besides the point in many universities. As I was told mid-last century: IF YOU CAN’T GET IT ON YOUR OWN, YOU CAN’T GET IT.
And then, I wonder what is it that they impart to you that’s worth $250,000?
What I see happening now is that students admitted to the State University choose instead to do their Freshman and Sophomore years in a Community College, where pedagogy is the sole standard for tenure and tuition is about half of what you pay after transferring to the State U to finish your Junior and Senior years (rarely can you finish in 4 or 5 years nowadays). So all the help Obama promises to those who want to go to college is not the issue. The issue is: WHY WASN’T I TAUGHT ALL THIS CRAP BY THE END OF HIGH SCHOOL? The answer, of course, is that teachers from K to 4th grade just want to get you to stop spitting at others from the top end and defecating on the floor from the bottom end. That’s called “socialization.” For that they think they are entitled to $60,000 a year + benefits AND TENURE TOO! And, the Teacher’s Colleges think they are entitled to $250,000 for getting you “qualified” for that job. Your college Freshman year is such a blow of overload— with chemistry, physics, biology, calculus and English— that about 33% of the best school’s hand-picked Freshmen drop out. For the others, as they used to say in the 60s, the campus is a “sandbox” that, in some cases, even sells beer at the student center bar. I would imagine that if most universities put the $ millions they put into “student activates” into educational assistance, you wouldn’t have so many drop outs. But academia has neither responsibility, nor authority, nor accountability. They just share the tenured professorial salaries and pensions with the administrators because both are sooooo necessary. There’s no contractual obligation for classes to be “relevant” to how you will pay back the student loans. So, money lenders like Fanny Mae, Freddie Mack and the Soprano Family all figured: Heeeey, if universities are such big crooks pretending that they educate, why can’t we be usurers pretending that we are helping with loans?
Bottom line. Given what garbage is American lower education, until it is fixed, college should operate as if a culpability no-contest suit settlement by the state as rumination for wasting 12 years of your life forcing you to attend its “schools.” To afford that, colleges that do pedagogic should not be research institutes in disguise. Those who know how to handle a micropipette with a steady hand should do genetic research; those that can explain, engage and fix attention, should be teachers. By separating the two, the cost of teaching will drop by more than half—- OF COURSE, THE BAR WOULD BETTER BELONG OFF, NOT ON, CAMPUS. Learning centers should replace student centers “where a kid can be a kid”... we already have CHUCK E. CHEESE for that. Instead, the older ex-students who can’t find work or can’t afford tuition repayment, should be allowed to work it off as free tutors, instructors, lab aids, etc. to help the next generation get a cheaper higher education to make up for their non-existent lower-education. In the end, more student loans can be paid back in services more effectively than by FBI chasing down grads, n’est pas?
DE Teodoru… EXACTLY! I get so annoyed when people tell me, “well, nobody forced you.” That isn’t exactly true. When one is in school, especially a prestigious school, there is a culture that envelopes the student. It says if you do not go on and earn an advanced degree you will not be successful. You are doomed to a life of mediocrity.
However, here are two points that those that say a loan is a loan and you have to pay it back no matter what to consider:
Point 1. Foreign students (at least at my school get full rides to graduate school, while many American citizens also receive fellowships and full rides, not all of them do. Many times the fellowships go to minorities (sorry, that is just how it is) The university wants diversity, hence they give free money to foreigners and minorities. I (who had a near perfect GPA) got squat. All I could get were loans. Hence, it was use loans or no school.
Toward the end of my academic career, my university was suffering from budget cutbacks imposed by the state. My graduate assistantship was taken away from me. I went nearly two years without one. YET, students from Pakistan and China still had their graduate assistantships. I was told, “well, because they are foreigners they can’t get loans, so if we don’t give them a GA, they won’t be able to attend.” I said to myself, too bad, let them go to a school in China or Pakistan, I need financial help too. However, all I could get was the privilege of student loan debt!
Point 2. There is a rite of passage timeframe (at least at my university). I was nearly done with my dissertation in six months. However, my committee kept finding excuses, problems and more excuses that extended my time in school by nearly a year an a half. Keep in mind that I have seen students graduate with worse dissertations. The quality of the dissertation is irrelevant; it is the amount of time to complete the dissertation that matters. Hence, they find ways to extend the period. At anywhere from 15k-20k a semester that added a minimum of 45k to my debt. Did the professors care? Nope, that is none of their concern. I have a friend that has been working on his for nearly 3 years. He is so frustrated with his committee that he has nearly given up. Professors are not around when they say they will be and students are not allowed to progress until the committee signs off. A student might try to get a committee meting in the spring, then one or two professors can’t make it and they reschedule for the summer. Then someone can’t make it in the summer and they reschedule for the fall. In the meantime, student loans keep accumulating.
The system is ridiculous. People need to understand it is not as simple as “no one put a gun to your head.”
— Bob - Feb 27, 08:00 PM - #Oh Bob, you don’t know how right you are…I remember at the Rutgers Bush (that’s its name, I didn’t make it up) Science and Med School campus that if you got lost you were dommed unless you speak Chinese. Rutgers has three “sister universities” (???) in China and was importing research endentured coolies— familes and all, all expenses payed (if you can call the paultry sum pay). They were desperate and accepted anything so long as they got out of China. There was a big scandal when a reporter from the school paper saw a bunch of Chinese grad students working on a professor’s roof. When they were asked why they did it without getting payed they said that they assumed that it was part of the PhD program requirement. Then, at a conference on how to get more Black professors at Rutgers, the Dean— a Black man—said because there are no black PhDs available. Well, I insited, if you stopped importing Chinese research coolies and, as a STATE U, took in more American students with full assistance, you might get more Black PhDs like the brilliant guy teaching neuroscience— excellent pedagogue too!!!
Rutgers fooled NJ citizens and got a big Bond issue voted in to supposedly provide “better higher education” to our kids; instead it built lots of research buildings…so, of course, it needed research coolies who would even go on the roof and fix the prof’s leaks. Imagine how an American grad student would react. The answer came when the chairmen of Anthropology, who had been plugging a grad student, was dumped by her. He went on a slander campaign against her “scholarship.” If she were a Chinese coolie, she wouldn’t dare reject him. But this US chick blew him away with a scandal. Yet, Rutgers payed him FULL SALARY TO RETIREMENT AND HIS FULL PENSION if he left quietly. Who do you think payed that settlement: the students in tuition that they payed for at 6% after graduation!
That’s one case, there are many others on other campuses. And Obama had better not just throw money at Higher Ed— instead he should fix it…as we expect him to do with the zombie banks. I am amazed at how so many of the idealist student of the 60s have become such scumbag profs. That’s why a scumbag like Horowitz can intimidate them. They have a lot to hide.
— DE Teodoru - Feb 27, 08:30 PM - #First thing I notice is that the author graduates from USC. Most likely was expensive back then too. And really, THREE degrees? Who needs that to start working on repaying loans! OK, now the real scam today: PLUS Loans forced on parents who are unemployed due to work shortage (not being fired or pinkslipped). Most tradespeople in other words. Colleges bully us to get that PLUS, knowing the govt takes anybody, but also knowing it comes due in a few short months! Then, when we are even more in debt, what can we do? Request forebearance? Meanwhile, the college got their $$, and that’s all they cared about.
— kathy - Mar 1, 10:34 AM - #The article lets me know the normal bankruptcy is unavailable to student loan debt.
— Sy Katus - Mar 25, 06:46 PM - #The internet reference I found said persons on SSI are entitled to a bankruptcy finding in such cases.
What ever is true the fact is I was in court already over it and the finding was in my favor.
When the loan company took me to court in 1991-92 proceedings the court took $2000 off what the Loan Company could collect (from the government guarantee) and set my liability at “0.”
Do I have to take it back to court every ten years as legal profesional friends have said?
That is not fair. In a fair judgment it would be knocked down again and they would be out the interest again. Therefore at least in my case the system makes no sense but is making useless trouble and expense, where the government guarantee should have paid the loan all along and certainly after the 92 decision by the court. The government now is backing loans they never originally guaranteed for billions at banks and the like, so where is equality under the law for all persons gone?.
Why didn’t the government pay the loan back when it was $2000 like the other one I had at the same time that they apparently paid the loan company for. Or why didn’t they pay it when it was lowered again to close to $2000, as I was the same person and in the same time span with same conditions prevailing?
I’m learning from the article how unscrupulous the system might be to persons who were actually supposed to pay student loans back. Judging how they treat me who was supposed to be exempt (due to disability and the requirements of my pension that I never obtain the money to pay them back without also paying the social security admin almost as much), it is believable that they treat all the student creditors as second class citizens, by not affording them the same protections other debtors have under law while the 14th amendment supposedly guarantees equality under the law.
Thank you tho those who sympathize with me, for your agreement with me in this case that it wasn’t fair or ethical for the loan company to still be pursuing me for the loan and interest 32 years while I was a disabled person, while a crook who stole millions, maybe billions would likely be protected by statutes of limitations or while billions are being given to banks and giant industry for debts they owe, not originally guarented by the government
If I were inclined to suicide, as I once and for some time was, with their hounding me for payment still they surely could easily spark the inclination in me.
It makes me wonder how many have succumbed to suicide under such inequity directed against former students who were just using The established System, or ushered into using it by Financial Aid personnel to get an education in their poverty. I’ve heard of some cases like that actually.
In my opinion, the recourse to this injustice in our system is a murder indictment against the legislators, (and credit company people who obviously bribed them), who allowed these methods to be propagated and no less is justice for the dead and suffering from these established legal persecutions. Any less would not set a precident preventing such biased future legislation.
I would never recommened anyone taking out a student loan. our family has been terrorized since 1997 when I asked the FLDOE for a hardship deferment when my spouse became disabled and I became his full-time caretaker.
— Alex - Aug 18, 09:31 AM - #The FLDOE hired-out of state collections agencies that called our home 24/7 from as early as 6am as late as two am. using profanity as their major criminal tactic.they called our children, their employers, my past employers, our neighbors, our extended families. In 2007 they were calling every 15 minutes, they contacted our son’s in-law’s and left severe threatenning messages. of which was one that I was in contempt of court and if they did not contact me, they would be as well. This event induced my spouse into sustaining renal failure from highblood pressure malignancy. He became nonresponsive, remained in critical care for ten days. Has sustained multiple hospitalizations since then. Since January of this year alone he has been hospitalized six times. Over the past six weeks has had two blood vessle surgeries with a third in six weeks for the preparation of dyalysis.
I have remained unemployed because they invaded my credit report and contacted a college where I worked part time for 72.00 a week-I was “ layed off “
Now my spouse is terminally ill. I have not been able to work for any benefits for us or myself when he passes.
I asked for a hardship deferment, the events thereof should never have happened.
My dreams for providing for my family turned to ashes and my hope despair.
The FLDOE as all the other Department of Education in the USA hire thugs if you cannot pay and they will terroize your home, they will invade the home of anyone that you know and they will punish you by keeping you unemployed.
They will attach unaccounted for compounded interest daily. My original loan was 48,500. that immediately upon reciept of my request for the hardship deferment turned into 299,999.00.
How was this amoritized?
this type of criminal behavior will only stop if the student lenders many of which as I were told lies by the financial aid people will come together in a class action and sue them.
I cannot express the severe emotional pain that we are in.