I found out what I owe today. I'm sick and terrified.

[SarasotaRepub]

OK, how long till someone says this is Bu$Hitlers fault????

aquart (1000+ posts) Thu Jun-23-11 09:50 PM
Original message I found out what I owe today. I'm sick and terrified.


I have an unpaid student loan. I am truly irresponsible. This IS on me. That makes it worse.

I can mitigate. I can say I wouldn't have even applied to graduate school if my father hadn't promised to pay every dime of it. Which is true. Or that Columbia pushed me into a loan more beneficial to them than me, which my sister insists is true but I don't know. I have trouble filling out forms. They did it for me. I wasn't formally diagnosed with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (God, do I hate admitting being defective but that's how bad it is tonight) until nearly 50, in 1995 and I credit Ritalin with the MFA certificate I have somewhere. But one of the weirdnesses is that small, easily-resolved questions can become huge stumbling blocks. I was on Medicaid until I failed to fill out a form correctly.

In 1992, according to the voice on the phone tonight, I signed papers taking out a $20,000 loan. Of which I received $14,000 because they (whoever "they" were) took out "points," but now owe $77,000.

When the loan was half that, my mother took a reverse mortgage on a then highly valued house and offered to pay off the loan and told her brother the lawyer to do what was necessary. He didn't. They won't negotiate student loans and he wanted to use the ADD to declare me some kind of disabled which I still don't believe and neither do most people. So he let it slide until he died.

The woman on the phone tonight wanted my mother to take every dime she has left in her house and pay them. My mom is 90 with stage 4 lymphoma. Of her two surviving daughters, I'm the healthy one. (Also the one unable to wear shoes due to foot surgery...but I can wear Uggs and certain sandals.) My sister is having neck surgery this fall to prevent further degradation of her spine. If it succeeds, she has been promised three months of truly terrible pain. So I can't tell my mother and my sister about this.

That's more than I ever wanted to tell anyone. It leaves out a lot but that's enough poor pitiful me. As frightened as I am, my bum feet are still there, I still have a home, there are still some people I love who love me. I know that makes me one of the lucky ones. But tonight I am so scared. I don't see any way out and if this ever-increasing amount doesn't crush me today, when will it?

Man...this is so screwed up it's probably true!!! :eek::D

[Articulate_Ape]

Columbia? Please. I hope he/she/it is referring to the country and not the university.

[Novaheart]

I propose that from now on scholarships and student loans can only be used toward degrees in what I call "productive majors". Physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering, education (with a major in a subject), criminology, veterinary, etc...

[Articulate_Ape]

I propose that from now on scholarships and student loans can only be used toward degrees in what I call "productive majors". Physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering, education (with a major in a subject), criminology, veterinary, etc...

I concur. If you want to pursue a major in The Sumerian clay phallus and its place in today's feminist understanding of alternate lifestyles, it's on your nickel.

[Apocalypse]

OK, how long till someone says this is Bu$Hitlers fault????

Well we got a 'Re'puke at post #6

Sarah Ibarruri (1000+ posts) 6. It makes me sick to my stomach that where other advanced nations have free schooling...
We end up owing the powers-that-be who are so F corrupt that it makes me doubly sick, just to get a simple degree. This country has been made so F'd up by Repukes.

While #23 is a nice long rambling.

FirstLight (1000+ posts) 23. ...in a very similar dinghy, rowing right there with ya!
Edited on Thu Jun-23-11 10:53 PM by FirstLight
I was 22 when I had to go back to school, after being abandoned by my husband (we were both just kids, i know) and having a baby alone.
Since I was on welfare and struggling to do the right thing with school, or not being able to hold jobs when being a mom and student - i spent a good 6 years on welfare & food stamps, and student loans were my tax-free and welfare free way of having disposable income. I admit, i was young and stupid, and the financial aid lady told me more than once to go for the full amount, since "by the time you get done with school, the payments will be EASY..."
student loans pout studded tires on my car for winters, furnished my apt with cheap but okay stuff, and helped me make my son;s early years not so poverty ridden as they could have been.
so it took me 4 years to finish my AA...i got a good job and was okay for a few years...by 2000, the shit had hit the fan. I was really lacking a BA for a real career (which, I have to say i was still trying to figure out)...I had hit 30 and was unable to say I had a grip on how i was going to provide for my son for the rest of his formative years. I tried to go back to school, but the closest university was an hour away, and i was always fighting my parents on the reality of leaving my son in daycare or trying to drive and put myself in jeopardy in bad weather...
so i dropped out after one semester
and then the loan people came calling
my principal was about 17K, over 21K with interest
i was good about filling out the paperwork every year to defer until i could get a grip, which was not forthcoming really, did some temp work, but really struggled...and this time school was not even an option,(no qualification for a loan or a grant at this point) which sucks, because if I had my way i would be in school for life, i love it.

so i stumbled a bit and had another distracting bump in my road of life...ya, don't go there...
fast forward three more years - and I left my abusive ex the day after my 34th bday
with 2 more babies no less
of course since survival had been my life, filling out loan paperwork had not been happening
now i was in default, a whole new ballgame

I called the dept of education, the supposed holder of the loan, who had hired out a nasty credit agency pof course
nope $350/mo min pymt, no ifs ands or butts
i was on welfare and hadn't held a job in years and was in serious therapy for a year just to get stable...
"so what?"they said

I even went so far as to research online and ended up contacting the DOJ about abused women's protections
and that there should be a bill to pardon these kinds of circumstances, or grant women a stay of execution for 3-5 years..
never got a call back never got anywhere but mired in the maze and whatever letters i sent went unanswered, all i ever got was a statement
and a payment return envelope

Now i live with the fact that each year my taxes will be gone to pay the dept of ed
i am supposed to qualify for an EIC, but they take it out of one packet, and put it in the other...right in front of me
sorry for thinking that if i am poor enough to qualify for the EIC, i may just NEED it more than they do.

oh but there's bombs to buy and people to maim
ya, love how that works, don'tcha?

Very diligent in deferring those loan payments every year, opposed to paying them.

[Starbuck]

This was probably posted by someone who has referred to Sarah Palin as a 'moron' because Palin took 5 years to get through college.
Palin paid her own way and graduated debt free.:)

[FDK]

OK, I call bouncy. How in the heck do you get into Columbia (the school) if you have trouble filling out forms? A college admissions application is a form. If you screw it up then you ain't gettin' in. (unless you're black, Latino, female, gay or some other protected class....)

[NJCardFan]

OK, I call bouncy. How in the heck do you get into Columbia (the school) if you have trouble filling out forms? A college admissions application is a form. If you screw it up then you ain't gettin' in. (unless you're black, Latino, female, gay or some other protected class....)

The above is female.

[txradioguy]

OK, I call bouncy. How in the heck do you get into Columbia (the school) if you have trouble filling out forms? A college admissions application is a form. If you screw it up then you ain't gettin' in. (unless you're black, Latino, female, gay or some other protected class....)

Affirmative action at its finest.

[Constitutionally Speaking]

I was on Medicaid until I failed to fill out a form correctly.

Welcome to the government run health care system.