I am going to be doing the same thing you are. What are you monthly payments around? I just hate the fact that mines is giong to be more than what I pay in cc's per month. So far I am looking at $400 but, I have not done the consolidation as of yet becuase I am still in school. I have one with Sallie Mae and the newest ones are Chase. I am going to have them all put in one by the lowest rate when I get ready to pay back. As long as you stay on top of your deferments or foreberance you will be alright. The things that we must do in order to fight for nice salary...lol If this don't pay off, I am going to pull a John Q on somebody, the school or the job I am applying for.

I am still paying off my student loan from 1999. The original loan was for $25,000. I have been through the "rehabilition" process two times. LP25's description of the process is completely accurate - the DOE is very willing to work with you to get your loan out of default. The collection agencies that I dealt with were not bad as collection agencies go - I set up the 9 consecutive payments as automatic debits from my checking acct. Times were REALLY HARD during those 9 months because the payments were huge but after that I too got the built up interest removed and my account was removed from default. My most recent rehab was 2006 - I paid on time until Jan 08 when I asked for and was granted a 6 month deferment (spelling??) because I knew the 1st qtr of 2008 was going to be really hard for me and I didn't want to default again.

since my parents had originally told me that they were going to pay the loans

Yoooouuuu lucky.......

Uhhh nothing, never mind!

I have about $25,000 in student loans and I am not looking forward to repaying the loans especially since my parents had originally told me that they were going to pay the loans off for me because they did that for my sister. But oh well, I'm not looking forward to it especially with interest rates.

hi there
my sister took the loan and a have successfully returned it.But the student may be in problem if he is using the money in some other things.

I am going to get automatic payments. I don't want anything coming back on me from them ever again. It is no way out of it unless you die or become disabled. I don't want to choose neither. THEY MAKE YOUR LIFE MISERABLE! DON'T PAY THEM AND SEE!

We were fortunate to have the money to keep paying our student loans. When we inherited some money, we paid them off together. We had some hard times, but I let other things slide before the student loan payment. I knew there was no getting out of paying them, and I didn't want my tax returns seized, so that's why I made these a priority over other loans.

In todays society, it is a good investment for the government.

Cobalt, don't do student loan lenders actually look into and research what school the consumer would be attending?

Well I have seen many people taking students loan and using it in some other thing. That is really bad. They are making it difficult for the students who actually take those loans for their study.

First I want to say thank you to whoever cleaned up my previous post ([p]) LOL

If you were in school back in the 80's like me, then you might already know quite a bit about student loans, but I wanted to share where I got most of my information to clean up my act from.

http://www.ed.gov/students/college/repay/edpicks.jhtml?src=ln

It covers just about everything you need to know about grants, private loans, parent loans, etc. to deferments, forebearance, loan forgiveness, and even loan cancellations, etc. It also walks you through contacting an ombudsmen should you run into problems with a collection agency (if you ever run into that problem).

I used an ombudsmen because the collection agent representative would not bend. They wanted $600 a month and nothing less. The ombudsmen says they cannot force me to pay more than 10% of the outstanding balance...blah! blah!

Because it was such a scary time for me, I have not been late since it's been cleared up.. and you know what?? I think because of my student loan payment back on track again, my FICO score has improved.

One more semester to go for you.. congratulations! I'm looking to graduate in 2009, but goodness, I've been out of school so long, I find myself asking my kids for help with homework.

Thanks so much for your repsonse LP25. Whew, I waited two months for it.


I did the samething back in 88', that is when I was in cosmetology school. I was kicked out of school for fighting (that is how young I was) and I went to another school in Daily City, CA. My loan was originally for $7k but they had to prorate it since I was only there for less than a month or so, and it left me a balance of $800. Do you know that I ignored the $800 for about 8 years after I graduated! Then it turned out to be almost $3k. I thought that I was geting away with murder because my taxes were comming back to me. Just when I thought that I was going to Reno, NV for the weekend with friends. I got a letter in the mail stating that my taxes was offset. I did not know what offset meant becasue I have never had that done to me before. So I called in and they told me exactly what you stated about taking my taxes. I was only left with $85 when they were through with me.
:

I am so afraid that when I graduate, some unforsceen incident may occur, then baam! I'm back on the run again. Why cant we have a protector plan like the credit card company offers us. If we have unforsceen incidents, the protection plan pays off the balance.

Well, I guess that I will get ready for the payments. My husband and i were going to purchase a new vehicle next year, which is going to cost nearly the same as my student loan. He think I should make the paymets on the student loan for 60 the same way I would pay for the suv. No way buddie, my camary is a 97, I dont think it is going to make it another 60 months. We will just have to take away from his beer budget

Hi Meya,

Nope. Sometimes these are not your typical "just pay it conversation." It might help to avoid what I've been through, though, but even that is easier said than done.

I've done it all. I've applied for a student loan, I've defaulted, I've had my tax refund offset, I've rehabilitated and I am now back in school and eligible to receive more student loans. And let me tell you, it was not easy!

Just a little history here: My loan was taken out back in 1988 (yes, I'm that old) and it was for only $5,000. By the time I rehabilitated, my loan had tripled+ to over $16,000. I still have the loan, but after rehabilitating, I pay $124/month. However, I am back in school now so my loan is in deferment.

There are way too many reasons why I hadn't paid. I was young and it was way too easy to get a credit card. I had about 8 credit cards and an average of $1K on each one. $1K back in those days would be equivalent to a CL of 5K today. Obviously, I could not keep up.

When my tax refund was offset I was bummed! I sure could've used that $3K! A month after that, I was threatened with wage garnishment. I did some fast online researching and found that DOE allows a person to rehabilitate their loan.

This means you MUST pay an agreed amount between you and the collection agency. (DOE will NOT intervene by accepting your payments). A lot of people try to pay DOE directly, but that is just to avoid paying penalties, interests, fees, etc. DOE will tell you that they had made numerous attempts but was forced to hire a collection agency because they had failed in collecting from you. Regardless if you move, DOE is only required to notify you by the last mailing address you had provided. Ohh.. sorry, I digress!

Rehabilitating is making 9 consecutive payments to the collection agency. If you miss one payment, you are not rehabilitated and may end up paying the full amount. If you complete your 9 payments, the collection agency reports to DOE and you are removed from the default list. And, you get your tax/lien offset removed. Your credit report shows your loan but it is no longer negative, as well. In some cases, like mine, when I rehabilitated, the interests which was close to 7K, was removed from my balance, too. When I began rehabilitating, it was 12 consecutive months. Effective July 2007, they changed it to 9 months.

If my loan had not been deferred, I would have been making payments for a little over 2 years - Since 2004. I added my student loan bill into my budget when I was in rehabilitation (I sound like Lindsey Lohan). After one year of paying, I got used it to. Didn't feel the dent after awhile. And the peace of mind is indescribable.

Hello everyone, I have a question to those who have applied for student loans and are in repayment. I am comming close to time for graduation which will be sometimes next spring 08 and I am a $50,000 nervous wreck. Have anyone here made succesfull payment for at least 2 or 3 years without any lates? If so, what technique did you use to stay successful? I know this may sound like a "Just pay it conversation" but there are many people out here that has defaulted on thier loans due to time consumption or for some other odd reasons. I would like to hear someones story. Thanks!