The following are testimonials submitted to this site. To tell your story, please go here.

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Witheld (Maryland)

I am writing to tell my sister's story.  She is no longer with us...She took her life a year ago.

My sister was the first in our family to attend college.  She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and did really well for awhile.  In her early 30s, she became ill (breast cancer) and was unable to work.  I am not sure how she was paying her loans, but I know the student loan representatives were hounding her.  I spoke with several on her behalf and little if anything was ever accomplished. 

My sister was out of work for a very long time as "chemo" made her very ill.  She was repeatedly called by student loan representatives even when told how ill she was. 

I do not want to go into a great deal of detail, but I will say that my sister took her life as she said she simply did not want to live anymore.  What is interesting is that my sister was not terminally ill.  Her cancer was in stage 2...and her prognosis were very good.  What ultimately led to my sister's death is the way she was repeatedly hounded by collection agencies regarding her student loans.  I wrote to a Maryland Senator myself and stated that something has to be done about this.  People are being penalized for going after their dreams of becoming educated.  Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

My sister's life has been an inspiration to me.  I have decided to go back to school.  I promised her that I would not obtain any student loans...I am doing it the old fashion way....I am working 3 jobs to finance my education.  I will be somewhere in my early 40s when I finish, but at least I won't have to be concerned about being literally worried to death over student loans....

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Gail (Oregon)

This is my son's story so I don't have all the facts but I do know enough to know it was one of the factors that drove him to suicide.  He was very depressed because he owed over $200,000 in student loans and saw no end to ever paying them off.  He had consolidated before the interest went way down and when he looked into doing it when interest was good he was told he could only do it once in the life of the loans.  He had gotten his masters degree and had almost completed his PHD.  Because of this hard line rule it became overwhelming.  He committed suicide 9/28/05 and the world lost a beautiful, brilliant person and I lost one of the loves of my life.  I'm not just saying these things because I am his Mother and loved him. 

He was so smart he belonged to MENSA and I am attaching his local obituary.  I keep receiving bills from the student loans even though I have repeatedly returned them to sender with the message that he was deceased.  When they kept coming I added the fact that he was deceased in part because of these bills and when they still kept coming I added that they were rubbing salt in a wound and were breaking my heart and to please cease already.  Michele was 39 and had so much to give. His Father is dying of liver cancer but Michele's death is the tragedy of his life, even more than his own death sentence.  His wife, his parents and brothers are all victims.    I would like to see legislation that protects these students and gives them alternatives if they have a hardship repaying these loans. 

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David (Texas)

The Austins

My husband took out a Heal loan for podiatry school in 1982, 1983, 1984 totaling $39,000. We have paid Sallie Mae over $88,000. In the last three years due to illness, bad luck and decisions, my husband's work has declined substantially. He has exhausted his deferments, and now his loan has accumulated a tremendous amount of interest. This was a $39,000 debt that now will have cost him well over $223,000 and more. All his government student loans have been paid in full. This particular loan was originally obtained by a saving and loan that went bankrupt and then was later sold to Sallie Mae. It is not considered a federally backed student loan. We have difficulty, but are able to pay our other debts such as food, clothing, car payment, credit cards, etc. When my husband stopped paying he was making payments of $700-800 a month. We presently do not own a home, but plan on purchasing one soon. He is apprehensive about filing bankruptcy on other debt that we can pay. Also, you must file a student loan "undue hardship" separate from a bankruptcy anyways. How do we find a lawyer to do this, because everyone I have contacted pretty much states "student loans can not be included in any bankruptcy". Personally I dont think they want to bother even in legitimate cases. We have made several attempts to work out arrangements with Sallie Mae, to no avail. Their only recourse is for him to take out another loan, with of course all this additional acrued interest. If that is our only recourse, we will be paying $500,000 on a $39,000 debt. He is now 53 years old and this is getting scary.

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B. Napoli (CA)

Q: How does the American middle class dream of affordable
higher education become a nightmare?
A: Default a student loan.

Synopsis:

Multiple loans as a graduate student attending Cal State Northridge. Full-time through 1993 in an approved grad program, no problems, just sailing along. (received loan in Sp. 1993). Earthquake in Sp. '94, lost home(apt.) verified by FEMA, dropped down to less than 1/2 time. Put into default. Wrote numerous letters to CSAC & loan Co. (AFSA), that due to hardship, I'd be dropping below full-time. To no avail, defaulted. Returned full-time in Fall '94 thru Sp.'95 full time, sent numerous letters (all certified mail), "sorry, but can't help." I've been fighting this since then. Have all documentation, but it's useless.  Every year (thru 1997), I would ask for a dispute hearing, and was answered with either a garnishment or judgement.  Finally gave up. 

Original loans @26,000, now over 70,000.
Paid over $20,000 in garnish $ tax intercept, lost my
scholarships (PhD), loan forgiveness programs, and chance at
a fellowship.

I actually taught at a low income, inner city school in Los Angeles for 5 years with the expectation that my student loans would be forgiven.  After 5 years, I learned that my loans would not be forgiven due to my default status.

Made the mistake of contacting Scott Williams & EdFund. I offered a settlement, also, but no bite.  Edfund, a "non-profit",  has also jacked my interest rate up to 19%.

I left off of the synopsis all the anguish, the
embarrassment, credit problems, anxiety, etc.( need I go on?)
All I want to do is pay my loans at a reasonable amount, and
get back to my life.

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Kathryn 

I can only tell you part of my story, because my loans have been passed around so much that I have no idea how my interest accrued or what the costs are. Due to a failed business and serious clinical depression, I had to declare bankruptcy in 2002. I defaulted on my student loans, and now, after a couple of years of repaying, I am "rehabilitated".  The lapse in paying back these loans was no more than a year.  My Sallie Mae bill went from 42,000 to 58,000.  I just rehabilitated another loan (by the way, these loans should be rehabilitated with 12 straight payments, but somehow, they "forget" to send them off to another purchaser).  Following the purchase of this loan by a bank, I received a "paid in full" note.  The current amount I owe on this note is more than $10,000(remember I have been repaying for about 2 years now). The amount of my original promissory note? Less than $4100.  WOW, huh?

I won't bore you with the tales of my other student loans.  All told, I expect to repay them all by the age of 70, based on the payment schedule. Well, that's one way of keeping me from retiring and collecting Social Security.  (These debts were incurred when I was 35 years old, by the way.)

My, my...you would think these student loans would not be given to loan sharks, but...

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Tina (Mississippi)

This is my story and I sincerely hope that someone will read it. My name is Tina Lutz and I am a 45-year-old Caucasian woman living in Tupelo Mississippi. I have two children ages 14 and 16. I have been divorced for 10 years and have been rearing my children alone.

I graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1985. During my college career I incurred $6000 in student loan debt. $1000 was incurred from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado and $5000 from the University of Southern Mississippi. Due to my financial situation over the years I could not be as diligent in the repayment of my student loans as I should have been. I have consolidated and defaulted my loans more than once over the years. It has always been my intention to pay off my loans but times have been lean over the years. I have had several IRS offsets that have been applied to the interest of my student loans.

In January of 2002 I was in a repayment program with the Aman Collection Agency, an instrument of the Department of Education. Aman set up a direct payment program for $100 per month that was drafted from my checking account. After 7 months of my repayment program, Aman was to send Sallie Mae paper work for me to sign to further my repayment program. I was consolidating my original three loans plus penalties, interest and collection fees that totaled approximately $14,000. Mysteriously a fourth loan appeared at Aman in almost the same amount of my consolidation. Upon receipt of this fourth alleged loan Aman abruptly stopped my consolidation program citing that I owed approximately $28,000 in total and they could not continue with my consolidation program until all of the loans were added together. This was in August of 2002. At that time I tried to explain that I believed a mistake had been made and the fourth loan was really the first three loans consolidated into one amount. At one point the note grew to approximately $33,000 and the DOE had a garnishment order imposed at that time. I couldn’t get anywhere with Aman nor the Department of Education. These two organizations insisted they were right and I was wrong. At that point a local attorney started communicating with Aman and the Department of Education. This attorney has not charged me to date because he has understood that I didn’t have the money to pursue this issue. Two years later and many threats of garnishment and almost a ream of documentation the Department of Education has now determined that I owe the $14,000 that I originally agreed to pay in January of 2002. However, to add insult to injury I am now being charged a $3600 commission fee owed to Aman for collection cost in regards to this situation. I feel that this whole situation is criminal and I have no recourse because the Federal Government is right and I have been wrong this whole time. I am very frustrated by the way I have been treated and I am appalled that I have to pay an extra $3600 because of their mistake. I do have the option to take this to Federal Court at my expense and of course the interest is still clicking away on these loans at my expense.

In my defense I was attempting to repay this debt in 2002. I recognize that I did not responsibly address the issues of my student loans in the past, but I still cannot get beyond the fact that I think that the way I have been treated is criminal. If I were to do the same things that the Aman Collection Agency and the Department of Education have done to me I do believe that I would be criminally charged. My credit has been ruined for years because of this situation.

I can’t help but wonder how many other women are in the same shoes that I am in. I have been fortunate to have the support of a local attorney to assist me in this matter but how many other women have not been so fortunate? If the local attorney hadn’t taken pity on me I am sure that I would be in a forced repayment program, garnishment, exceeding $33,000.

I understand that this is a confusing situation but I do have documentation to support all of my claims. I would somehow like to get my story told because I feel like I have been threatened, badgered and unjustly treated in this situation. I have been in contact with the Aman Collection Agency in attempt to negotiate some reasonable solution to this issue. However, neither Aman nor the Department of Education have been receptive. I had until Feb. 6, 2005 to raise $14,500 or else the garnishment order was to go into effect. I offered to pay the loan in the same manner that was agreed upon in January of 2002. I also asked that the duplicated note be taken off my credit report to which the reply was “it will take at least 3 months if it will happen at all”. I also requested that after 6 months of payment without any late payments or missed payment that the original note be taken out of collection on my credit report. All of this fell on deaf ears and blind eyes (my attorney made these requests in writing). Aman wants their $3600 regardless of what the situation has been.

Needless to say, I have been a nervous wreck for 3 years and even considered quitting my job to drop under the radar. That is not an option as I am rearing two teens by myself.

I would love for you to see the responses for my request of a hearing in person. I made that request twice and was denied. I have filled out the hardship paperwork 2 or 3 times at this point. My expenses were computed against the national averages except in the case that I exceeded the national averages. In that case my bill totals were lowered to the national averages. The math used to compute all of this is a mystery to me.

If my story is of interest to you please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I truly believe that someone needs to expose the DOE and their contracted collection agencies to their practices.

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Dave (New York)

Going to make this semi-short because so much is the "same" as so many others...and I have not checked for spelling. Back in the 80's I wanted to go to college.  My parents could not afford to send me and I was not eligible for grants (Pel?) because my parents earned "too much" - which at the time was something like 100 more than what they allowed people to earn per year. The only way I could go to college was to get a student loan. I did this three times - one for each year I was in college, for a total of $7,500.

 So college is done and I start to make payments. On a good day (month) I would pay up to 3 payments at once. never one time did I get a "thank you" letter about doing that. On a bad day (month) i might be a week late. The DOE wasted no time in contacting me with threats about "We will report you and that will ruin your credit". Around 1985 or so it got very bad - multiple letters and phone calls with colleciton agencyies making threats about ruining my credit and telling everyone they could about how bad I was at making payments. Agian with not knowing what I know now I was freaking oput about all of this and I just sent a nasty letter to them. The letter was basically a rant from me saying that I was tired of being treated as a number, I was tired of calling and being told that none of my letters were "on file" and all that came up was my name on a computer screen saying I did not make payments, that I was tired of not one time ever being thanked for getting payments ahead of time to them but being a day late and getting calls with people making threats. I also said that if I got any more letters or calls I would consider the remaining $2,500.00 paid in full and also report them to the AG of California. Needless to say I got more calls and letters so I sent off a letter saying because they failed to honor my request my debt was now cancelled,  I also sent a copy of all the paperwork I had at the time to the and CC'd a copy to the AG of California at the time...and to this day I have no idea why I actually did that, but I am, glad I did. For the next almost 18 years there were no more letters, no more calls...nothing.

 Than one day I am on a film set. Suddenly the line producer comes out and stops the shoot. She has the really concerned look on her face. She hands me a cell phone and stands there looking so sad. I say hello? and I hear a mans voice ask "is this Dave?" and I say "yes..." and his tone changes and goes into this whole "We are a collection agency and you defaulted on your student loan..." blah blah. I was stunned and chocked and i could barely muster any words...sitting on a set with the entire production being help up because of this phone call. As calmly as I could I had a semi-noir freak out and asked how they got the number and he would not tell me. I told him he had no right to call me on set and hung up. I asked the line producer how, and why, she would stop shooting for that. Well - after she told me what the guy told her I did some back searching. I called my mother and she had gotten a call from an "old friend" of mine who "has some jobs lined up" and needed to get a hold of me as fast as he could. So she gave him the studios production office. They got a call asking for me and told the person I was on a shoot and could not be reached. So the caller tells them there is a serious family emergency and he needed to get a hold oe asap.  So they give him the productions cell number so they can call the set directly. The phone rings and the line producer