Thursday, September 1, 2011

Divorce and Paying Off My Loans

I am a single, divorced mother in Augusta, GA. I have been paying off my student loan since the mid 2000's. The divorce took a lot out of my pocket and I have kids to feed. I also have to pay my car and house bills. I am afraid I will never get ahead of this loan because of the interest payments.

-A.M. in Augusta, GA




Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Starting a family with student loans to pay if hard!!

I went to two schools to get my Bachelors, one was a private college and the other was a state school. I had student loans from both schools. Once I graduated I didn’t find a job right way and I deferred my loans and didn’t think about them.  About two years later I found a teaching job and started to repay my student loans until I decided to go back to school online with a for profit education institution and the tuition was much high than a non-profit school college.  I went on and got my masters and started on my PhD.  I went all the way to my dissertation.  Now my student loans are over $100,000 and I am just starting out with a family I got married 2 years ago and a baby is on the way. I was contacted last week by Sally-Mae and I was told that they had lost me mailing address and they had been trying to contact me. I don’t know what to do with having a $100,000 education loan. I don’t know how I am going to pay a $100,000 loan off with all of my family debt. I need help with trying to pay back that kind of money.

- Barbara Strokes, Teacher

I have been paying off these student loans for years

I am public school educator with 17 years of career elementary education teaching in a Georgia school system.  Earlier on I obtained my bachelors degree in education by attending a small HBCU with most of my education being financed through grants and student loans back in the 80’s.  Back then student loans were funded and guaranteed by the federal government and not by private financing institutions. After obtaining my bachelors degree and working until my children had graduated from high school and out of the house I decided to go back to school for a Masters in Education and a administrative specialist degree. I attended a for profit education institution in Georgia and tuition cost was more than $28,000 and another $17,500 for the specialist degree. All of the tuition was financed through Sally-Mae. I started repaying the loans by making the minimum payment for years and then my husband lost his job and we couldn’t pay the payment any longer. We deferred the payment several times because my husband couldn’t find a job and we got father behind. The student loan balance shot up to $51,000.00 with interest and with me having the only income in our family we went underwater with debt.  Sally-Mae continues to call daily about the payments and we tried to avoid the phone calls but they continue to come. I made another deferral and the phone stopped.  Every time we deferred the loan was recapitalized and the principle balance increased and the loan balance kept going up. The loan is now on deferral and I am so frustrated that the loan is so high and I don’t know that we will ever pay the loans down with the economy the way it is. I don’t understand the financing process and how my loan got to be so high. It seems as if there are constant penalties and interest changes. It is so hard to keep up with the loan payments and I worry about how I am going to get a $50,000 loan paid off in my life time that is affecting my credit and my ability to get a car and home loan.  The last time we heard from Sally-Mae the payments were going to be over $500.00 per month and I know I won’t be able to pay that.  With me working every day I don’t have too much time to understand how much I owe.

-School Guidance Counselor, Janice Y. Sander