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STUDENT LOANS SYMPTOM
OF SICK SYSTEM
The problem with student loans is they hurt the very
people they are supposed to help [Amanda Robert, “Deep in
debt,” Aug. 21].
This is a class issue, because the children of the
rich (or rich enough) don’t need loans to go to college. They have no
debt when they graduate. Whether they have the opportunity to do a job that
pays well or not there are no consequences. The consequences are laid on
the backs of those that are the most vulnerable — the poor.
Student loans first offer hope, however education is
no guarantee of a well-paying job. Education is a “social
good.” Some will earn well and some will not. Some will be able to
repay their loans and some will not (this is no different with students who
don’t need loans).
The very fact that a student needs to borrow so much
is a symptom that the educational system is sick and doesn’t work for
the majority and helps to camouflage the real disparities between rich and
poor.
I think there needs to be a national discussion with
all points of view about the student loan system. Hard questions need to be
asked and politicians need to be held accountable for policies that
overlook the interests of the society on behalf of business and a fast
buck.
Sam Conley
Springfield
SALLIE MAE SCREWED ME
I am typing this from a library because I am now
homeless and living out of my SUV because of Sallie Mae loans and their
predatory collection practices in order to force a default. The default
hasn’t happened yet, because they are still busy artificially
inflating the principal by auto-forbearance — as in forbearing the
loan without my permission or prior notice after they managed to get me
laid off or fired from a job (more on that later).
They are inflating the loan with auto-forbearance so
that when they do finally default me at their whim, the 125 percent payoff
from their “federally guaranteed” arrangement with the
government makes them more money than if I paid the loan over the long
term. It is in their interest to keep me from being able to pay, and then
collect the defaulted amount as the principal includes interest they would
have made plus 25 percent. So on an inflated $100,000 loan, that is a
$25,000 bonus for nearly killing me.
I believe I was profiled as an easy target because I
was a single signer on the original loan agreement and have much less of a
chance on actuary tables to be able to just come up with a lump sum and pay
the loan off before it got this out of hand.
I signed a document that says 9 percent APR and $450
per month payment, and that includes their added interest to the base. But
the loan account has been as high as 27 percent. Imagine going to school
and realizing you are accruing more than $50 in interest each day. And the
first payment bill that came in was over $1,200 plus a $150 fee to process
my payment! Yes, you heard that right. It costs $150 for me to have the
“honor” to pay them or they won’t accept payment.
They have prevented me from getting jobs due to
background checks, and also have caused me to lose jobs because of their
calling 20 to 30 times a day to my bosses and co-workers. As it stands
presently, I have to have an $80,000-per-year job in order to pay them what
they want each month and hope to still bring home $45,000 or so to pay
living expenses. This is because of one loan “account” that
started at $32,000 and has ballooned to over $100,000 in about 2 years.
Jason Turner
Philadephia, PA
SALLIE MAE SCREWED YOU?
SHE SCREWED ME TOO
I am yet another victim of Sallie Mae. I took out
$7,000 almost 30 years ago. My payments are now more than $300 per month.
In the past three years alone, I have paid well over $11,000 and yet my
current balance is still almost $18,000! I can’t find an attorney who
specializes in fighting student loan debt or I’d be on it in a
heartbeat. Twenty years ago or so, I had my tax return taken, too.
There is no relief. Loans are traded, sold, whatever,
without ever notifying the student. Mine was bought and sold at least four
times. During a three-year gap in which I, too, could not find out which
bank had my loan, the interest accumulated exponentially.
What most people don’t realize is that Sallie
Mae is not a government agency, but a private company. So my question is:
how in the heck did they get so much power to ruin so many lives?!
I went online last night to check the current balance
and was not able to sign in to my account! My user name and password
suddenly didn’t work. When I tried to locate the loan under either my
Social Security number or the loan number, I kept getting a message that
“there are no accounts with this information.” This, after
I’ve been checking into my payment history both with Sallie Mae and
the previous lenders, all the way back 30 years, and after I joined Student
Loan Justice and posted comments on several online articles. But even
though my loan suddenly doesn’t exist online anymore, the monthly
payment still came out of my account automatically last night.
BJ Arnold
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
ONE MAN’S OPINION
Having read the article on an alleged police
“crackdown” on prostitution [Fletcher Farrar, “Going to
the Johns,” Aug. 21], in Springfield, and how some of the
“johns” are being sent to “school”, to learn the
dangers of prostitution, I noticed that your article missed one crucial
point: the reason why so many men go to prostitutes.
Could it be that these “johns” are not
getting what they need at home? Could
this be why they go to
prostitutes? Could it be that the press does not want to cover this part of
this issue, since this might mean questioning wives’ commitment to
their husbands? Could it be that some men go to prostitutes since their own
wives have “abandoned” their marriages, in favor of earning
wages, to pay bills with?
Could it be that this part of the issue will not
receive any review, since it would show that wives are not more
“saintly” than husbands?
As for how to get rid of the problem of prostitution,
I say that this question
will be resolved just as fast as a cure is
found for the common cold and for
flu season. Probably a cure for cancer
will come sooner.
Norman Hinderliter
Springfield
HOPE FROM A CUP OF WATER
When I first planned to attend the Barack Obama/Joe
Biden rally on Aug. 23, I wasn’t sure what to expect. A
communications student at Springfield College-Benedictine University, I
went not only to hear what Obama and Biden had to say, but as part of a
class assignment as well.
Despite the heat, or perhaps because of it, I learned
so much that day. I learned that pure, unadulterated decency has not
vanished from our society because that is exactly what I saw around me.
I saw people who had never met before that day share
food, ice, and water with one another. When water was handed out, men
passed it to women and children before taking any themselves. I felt that
most people were genuinely concerned with the well-being of those around
them. A tall man standing next to me even lifted me up into the air so that
I could see Sen. Obama when he appeared in front of the crowd.
With not knowing what to expect on my trip to the Old
State Capitol lawn,
it was definitely the little things I saw in my
four-hour wait that bolstered my once-shakey faith in our society.
Nikkie Prosperini
Springfield
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2008.
