Reply to involuntary collections of student loans

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "involuntary collections of student loans"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why wont they set rates for student loans to 2% instead of 14% with daily compounding interest. God forbid. [/quote]
There has been a bill floating around to do this.
[twitter]https://x.com/repmoskowitz/status/1907107917754470820?s=46&t=kf1qYlCXQnKgUhJWEIu2vg[/twitter][/quote]

this would be a tremendous help.

I did college the poor way that is always suggested here: I went to NVCC for 2 years and then transferred to an in-state school. I borrowed a pretty modest amount compared to my peers - only $16k. I thought that amount would be very easy to pay off. I was a fool! Yes, they tell you that you'll have to pay that amount back. No one is disputing that. What we didn't get a firm grasp of was the interest and how much and how crippling that would be.

I am now 35 and have paid $33,419.65 and still owe $11,890.02.

Imagine buying a crappy $16,000 car at age 20 and you're still paying it off at age 35. No one finances a car that long. No bank would finance a car that long!

I've almost paid back what I borrowed x2. That's what upsets me. That's what upsets most of my peers who have loans, too.  [/quote]

THIS is what no one seems to understand, or at least to include in most of the discussion.

My own anecdotes: I went to state school at a time when tuition was $600 per semester, so I was able to finish college without loans. My parents were able to help just enough to give me the choice of “state school, no loans” or taking out loans for private school, and the choice seemed clear.

For law school, I had my choice of any school, and picking something prestigious seemed like the key to a better future. So I took out loans. I wound up graduating early, which meant the initial grace period started running early and then ran out halfway through my low-paid clerkship year. Once loan payments kicked in, I was so poor that I could barely afford groceries (forget the PP who spoke of DoorDash and vacations, I was living off boxed cereal and entertaining myself with library books and $1 video rentals). I had to consolidate through SallieMae to get the monthly payment down, but that meant I was stuck with whatever interest rate was current at the time. It was 8.5%. All those years of almost-free money in the mid-2000s? I was stuck at 8.5% because of the law that you could only refinance/consolidate once during the life of the loan.

When I took out the loans, I wasn’t concerned about repayment because I knew a professional salary was waiting. But I wound up with the kind of future you can’t expect: a near-fatal illness that left me permanently disabled. Luckily I had long-term disability insurance, but half of my disability payment went to law school loans. Anytime I got an unexpected chunk of money, like CovidBucks? Extra loan payment. I finally finished paying off the loans at age 52, more than 15 years after my career ended.

Meanwhile, my now-husband took out the same number of loans, but his wealthier parents assumed the debt and let him pay them back without interest. He did it in a few years. I paid off my original balance in a few years as well, but the difference was the 8.5% compounding interest and a federal law that said I was trapped with that amount and could never move to a lower rate. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics