Let's talk student loans. let me hear your story

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Danilynn1975
Danilynn1975 Posts: 294 Member
in Chit-Chat
I have student loans.

A lot of student loans.

I got sold again this week. They sold me despite making my payments on time, and now I have no clue who is supposed to get money from me. The nitwits on the phone barely sounded sober and seemed very unorganized.

In my search for answers, I found out about a House Resolution currently sitting in Congress waiting on support that would help stop loans from being sold like mine was and restore consumer protection to folks with student loans.

It's gonna need a lot of support.

The HR 3892 Student Loan Borrowers Bill Of Rights Act of 2013 is the name of it. If your student loan mafia is as out of control as my loan holders have proven to be would you consider shooting an email or phone call to your congress person to ask them to support it?

Replies

  • AusAshMommy
    AusAshMommy Posts: 845 Member
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    Have two, totaling roughly $60K, one from my undergrad days x $40K and my grad school days x $20K

    They were sold once to the same company and have stayed with them for the last several years, and honestly they've worked well with me to get a payment arrangement based on my income I can afford and for the last three years or so I've stayed current with both, granted it'll be long past the time I die before they are paid off, but ah well, maybe some day I can afford to make a bigger payment to get them paid off.
  • krawhitham
    krawhitham Posts: 831 Member
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    I graduated in 2005 and had student loans until 2013. I think I owed a total of about $20-30K spread amongst several loans. Sometime in 2011 they were sold to a different loan company, which was incredibly confusing, and at that point I decided I was going to put ALL of my energy into paying them off. I lived so dirt poor from 2011 - 2013 just to get rid of my loans, and they're finally gone. I have heard of people's loans getting sold often and how disorienting it is. Mentally I don't do well with being in debt, I know most people just accept it as a part of life, but I feel so much freer knowing I don't owe anybody anything. I know that's not an option for everyone though :/

    I'm not sure if writing a letter would do any good.
  • Becca_Taken
    Becca_Taken Posts: 10 Member
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    They sold me despite making my payments on time

    Just to point this out... You loans don't get sold because of anything you did. It's just a normal occurrence. Any loan can be sold. A loan on your car, your mortgage, and yes, student loans.

    Over time I've had about 40k in student loans, and they are spread over a decade because I had a lot of problems and had to take breaks from school. I paid on them whenever they were not in deferral because of my breaks. I want to say they've been sold at least 4 times. It is annoying, but they were my responsibility so I made sure to keep track of how to pay them, even if I couldn't remember who I was paying. At least now most of the time you can make payments online. This is much more reassuring. The newest place that I access my loans lets me see all of my loans (like 8 of them) and the interest and info on them.

    I don't think the selling of the loans is necessarily a bad thing in general, it just can obviously be stressful to you. You have to stay on top of things, but that's actually small bit to ask for such a big deal. Most of the people I know with student loans act like it's such a hard thing to keep track of payments, but they honestly don't TRY to keep track. Some of them probably don't even know if their loans ever got sold. It's such a downer that they don't think about them except once a month to write a check. I hate my loans, but I deal with them just like I dealt with paying off my car and paying for my house.

    Just have to suck it up and not make excuses. I'm sure there are times that the selling can cause payment confusion but the majority of the time it's just the mentality of "Student loans suck, I don't want to think about it."

    If you are this upset, then don't wait for a letter to congress. See if you can consolidate your debt into a direct loan. Direct loans can not be sold. I have not done this, but I had a friend that did. It seems like that would be much simpler than writing a letter to attempt to change a practice in business that is so commonplace most people don't bat an eye twice at when it happens.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    They sold me despite making my payments on time

    Just to point this out... You loans don't get sold because of anything you did. It's just a normal occurrence. Any loan can be sold. A loan on your car, your mortgage, and yes, student loans.

    Over time I've had about 40k in student loans, and they are spread over a decade because I had a lot of problems and had to take breaks from school. I paid on them whenever they were not in deferral because of my breaks. I want to say they've been sold at least 4 times. It is annoying, but they were my responsibility so I made sure to keep track of how to pay them, even if I couldn't remember who I was paying. At least now most of the time you can make payments online. This is much more reassuring. The newest place that I access my loans lets me see all of my loans (like 8 of them) and the interest and info on them.

    I don't think the selling of the loans is necessarily a bad thing in general, it just can obviously be stressful to you. You have to stay on top of things, but that's actually small bit to ask for such a big deal. Most of the people I know with student loans act like it's such a hard thing to keep track of payments, but they honestly don't TRY to keep track. Some of them probably don't even know if their loans ever got sold. It's such a downer that they don't think about them except once a month to write a check. I hate my loans, but I deal with them just like I dealt with paying off my car and paying for my house.

    Just have to suck it up and not make excuses. I'm sure there are times that the selling can cause payment confusion but the majority of the time it's just the mentality of "Student loans suck, I don't want to think about it."

    If you are this upset, then don't wait for a letter to congress. See if you can consolidate your debt into a direct loan. Direct loans can not be sold. I have not done this, but I had a friend that did. It seems like that would be much simpler than writing a letter to attempt to change a practice in business that is so commonplace most people don't bat an eye twice at when it happens.

    Solid advice here.

    I didn't take out any student loans, so I can't really help with this. This is embarrassing to admit but when I graduated from college in 2000 I DID NOT KNOW you could get student loans. I thought you either qualified for grants, got a scholarship, or had rich parents footing the bill. I only had a $1,000 scholarship which didn't go far even back then and my parents made way too much for me to get a grant but were not gonna pay for everything. So I just figured I had to pay or drop out. I did not understand how others would get cash back from their loans, I thought that was a grant...totally had no clue. Anyway...

    I did wind up with a lot of credit card debt though after college (doesn't seem like a whole lot now, around $5k, but it took awhile to pay off back then), because even though my parents helped out with tuition and I worked full-time to pay for my own rent, gas, insurance, groceries & utilities...there was NOT room for extras in my budget so I just charged it up when I was short on cash for textbooks or realllllly wanted to go out with friends occasionally.

    It sucks, but it's a means to an end. You'll get it paid down/paid off.
  • ealtynova
    ealtynova Posts: 3 Member
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    Hi! I'm a medical student and have already racked up around $100 grand worth of loans from 2 years of getting my masters in graduate school and my first year in medical school. I'm looking at probably at least another $200 grand over . So I feel for you on the student loans thing! I'm still fairly new to this loan process and hadn't even heard of loans being sold. Can anyone tell me what that entails and how it will impact me? I'll take any other student loan advice as well if I'm missing something! I'm not good with this stuff :(
  • threshkreen
    threshkreen Posts: 79 Member
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    I have parent loans and the two servicing agencies have been great. I've had mortgages sold and really had no issues with that either. It may be confusing, especially if you have automatic payment through your bank since you need to know exactly when the payee changes, but it has nothing to do with you as a debtor. They are just sold as part of general business by the holders.

    It will all work out. If you have multiple loans why don't you consider consolidating them into one payment - that way you only have one to worry about. Good luck.
  • TCarter18
    TCarter18 Posts: 22
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    It doesn't really impact you. Or at least it hasn't impacted me. When it's sold you receive a letter and you simply make your payments to that lienholder instead. That's it. I've had mine sold before and I only needed to change the auto payment to the new lienholder. It doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. It has nothing to do with your payment history.
  • aliyahdear
    aliyahdear Posts: 7 Member
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    Fortunately I didn't have that much in student loans but even the little I did have wore on me until I got it paid off. A friend of mine posted this linke (http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2013/01/15/how-i-paid-off-90000-in-debt-in-three-years/2/) on facebook a little after I had paid mine off and I wish I had seen it earlier, I even booked marked it just cause I liked it so much, lol. It gives a lot of cool advice and tricks that might help! Good luck!
  • danno912
    danno912 Posts: 8 Member
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    My GI Bill from the Army and state grants payed my college tuition in full. In fact they gave me over $1000 back for items I had paid for on my own when I graduated. But as far as loans being sold that happens all the time with all kinds of loans. Never has hurt anything so far, they have always been clear as to who my new loan holder is. And It has never increased the amount of my loan or interest rate in case you are worried about that.
  • wwwtheselion11
    wwwtheselion11 Posts: 422 Member
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    Hopefully are next president will have free education. Thats what i am waiting for to pay back my loans.

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