How Do I Negotiate With Sallie Mae - Your Advice + Experience Please!

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...The fact that these private non-dischargeable loans exist points to a much larger problem-- the government is not doing enough to help people through college. The solution isn't to make Sallie Mae richer by making their debtors indentured servants to the corporation via legislation. The solution is to make Staffords and PLUS loans easier to get.

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The real solution is to make grants and scholarships much easier to get.

[LynnInMN]

Education is affordable and accessable if you make the correct choices and plan properly.  Biggest problem as I see it is that we live in a "gotta have it all now" society.  I come from single parent household and it came down to if we wanted to go to college, we had to pay for it.  I worked and saved thoughout high school and my summers.  I got good grade and got scholarships.  No car, no expensive clothes, modest family vacations.  In other words, I worked my ass off.  I got my BA and went to law school and ended up with less than $10,000 in debt. (I graduated in 83.)  When I got a job, I shared an apartment, took public transportation and paid off my debt in just over 2 years.  Yes, expenses were lower back then but so were salaries. 

When I worked financial aid, rarely did I see students with much savings.  They didnt want to take work study because it would take time from the "college experience"...i.e....partying.  I saw a lot of stupid choices. 

My advise to those of you who have kids.....

1.  Make sure they complete as many AP courses as they can while in high school.  Any college credits you can get while in high school are a huge savings in the long run. 

2.  Complete your general education courses at a community college....huge savings there.  Then transfer your credits to a 4 year college.

3.  Attend state schools for undergrad.  A Harvard undergrad degree is really no better that a University of Minnesota or Wisconsin degree.  There are a lot of great state schools with grad programs too!

4.  Stay away ....I mean run away from proprietary for profit schools.  University of Phoenix is a great example of a degree mill.  Employers chuck resumes with that school listed.  ITT is another one.

5.  Live at home if at all possible.  Take public transportation.  In most major cities you can live without a car. 

6.  Start saving early.  My girls are 10 and 12 and we have been saving since birth.  We make it a point to put something in their education accounts each month.  When my hubby was unemployed we still managed to squeek $20 a month into their accounts.  Even my girls will add money to the accounts from their birthday and christmas money. 

Post secondary education is not a right in this country.  If you cannot afford, obviously you will have to borrow to attend.  Borrow the minimum amount possible

[Anonymous]

Thank you to everyone who posted, especially LynnInMN, I appreciate the clear-headed and objective advice of an ex-professional in the student loan field. Your assessment was not what I had hoped to hear, but it is the reality, and that's all I've been trying to get at here with soliciting everyone's advice, so thank you.

And with that I have an update: I discovered that on this loan, in my state, if I as co-signer make 24 consecutive payments on the loan then I am free and clear off the hook on future obligations and payments. This is a private loan, issued in a particular state, so if my situation applies to you, please don't assume the 24 months applies to you as well. Talk to your loan agency and ask them to review the fine print of the loan with you and find out what are the legal ways for you to be released from obligation on the loan. So, I intende to make 24 payments, it is painful, but not as bad as paying off the full loan amount, and it protects my credit that I have worked so hard to build up.

I will also post a separate thread on the subject of co-signing, and why not to do it, I want other people to learn from my experience.

[Anonymous]

I have just completed my new post on cosigning student loans on the Student Loans forum:

Cosigning Student Loans - Learn From My Mistakes - Please Read

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=studentloans&thread.id=752

If you are thinking of co-signing a loan, or know someone who is, or who may in the future, I ask you to please pass them a link to my posting. It will open their eyes to the reality of what they are getting into, and could literally save their financial life.

Peace, health and happiness.