Articles Posted in Student loans

In what reads like a Student’s Bill of Rights, a 76 page Assurance of Voluntary Compliance, CEC must clearly and conspicuously disclose to prospective students a “Single-Page Disclosure Sheet” that contains the following information:

• the anticipated total direct cost for the program of study at the prospective campus; provided, however, that this provision shall not be interpreted to restrict CEC’s ability to change tuition, fees, or expenses;
• the median debt for completers for the program of study for the most recent reporting period, if available;

I’m still seeing a ton of misinformation out there.  A perfect example of this is someone who consulted with us yesterday and granted us permission to tell her story to hep others.

First, this client, we’ll call her Debbie, is a retired teacher who had $73,000 in Parent Plus loans.  She was told two different (what I can only say were lies at this point).  First, her servicer told her that if she didn’t pay her Parent Plus loans, her son would be responsible for them.  Not true.

Second, even though she was a teacher, she was told that she would not qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.  While this may have been technically true under her former loan types, the servicer conveniently omitted the fact she could consolidate and apply for ICR in order to qualify for PSLF.  Omissions are usually seen as another form of a lie.  The borrower is left with the false impression that nothing can be done and they are stuck.  Keep in mind that the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program was created specifically to encourage people to obtain degrees, often expensive Masters’ degrees, and go into the lower paid education field.

It’s difficult for laypeople (and sometimes bankruptcy attorneys) to believe there are legal options to reduce student loan debt after hearing for years that “student loans are nondischargeable in bankruptcy”.  Well, this is not always true.  They can be discharged – or partially discharged – and brand new payment terms set up.

Take a look at a review posted yesterday of one such case by Aaron:

• Christie and her staff where very professional honest and straight to the point with my student loans! I was struggling with private loan monthly payments that I could not afford in which was affecting my credit.

I heard from a client today who attended one of our student loan seminars recently.  Many of her colleagues in the military recently submitted their PSLF applications and are now starting to get back denials.  Despite completing the ten years of payments while working full time for Uncle Sam, PSLF relief is being denied due to what amounts to loopholes.  The most common reasons are they have the wrong loan types or wrong payment plans.  So as I thought, many people still don’t know they have a problem!

Kathy wrote:

• I cannot THANK YOU both enough for all the help and guidance getting my loans back on track for future forgiveness.  It’s a huge weight lifted knowing that now I have an end date to look forward to!! 🙂  I will absolutely write a review for you and have been talking you up to my fellow vets in the same position as me.  Quite a few of them recently tried to submit for loan forgiveness after 10 years of public service only to realize the same thing I did after your talk, Christie – that they did not have the correct loan type to do so.  I hope they reach out and utilize your expertise.