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Is a student loan debt crisis brewing? You better believe it.
According to a recent survey conducted by The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), there has been a significant increase in the number of clients with student loan debt in the past few years. In fact, the number of student loan related case loads has skyrocketed by 50 percent to more than 100 percent. And considering the fact that most student loans do not go away with a bankruptcy, a majority of these bankruptcy attorneys have reported how rare it is for a client be discharged from their debt in light of undue hardship.
This year, I was forced to make a tough decision since my income has recently been reduced by at least 40 percent. I basically had to choose between groceries and student loan debt. I chose the former because if I die or get sick from starvation, then how will I pay back my student loans? I think it’s in the best interest of student loan holders to make sure we stay alive so they can get paid…but what do they care really. They don’t.
I called my Citi student loan provider because I am now 17 days past due. When I got through I said: “Hi. I’m calling because I am past due on my student loan and you guys keep calling me every hour on the hour.”
“Would you like to make a payment?”
I explained to her my situation and how I make 40 percent less than I did before. As great as this woman was with empathy, she asked why I was calling. Gee, they’ve been trying to reach me for 17 days now, so I figured I’d give them a call back to be polite and inform them of my situation, of course.
She asked me if I had any other student loan debt and I told her my whole student loan story: I have a recently consolidated federal loan which I have made a priority in case I go back to school and request financial aid again. I have three private loans that I am unable to consolidate without a cosigner. If I were able to consolidate and only have two student loan payments (one federal, one private) things would be easier, but instead I have all these lump sum payments all due back to back at the end of every month.
Ugh, just writing this all down makes me want to shoot myself (metaphorically speaking, of course).
The customer service rep was really nice and told me that since federal student loans are more lenient than private student loans, I might want to try requesting a forbearance on my federal student loan so I could catch up on my payment with them–a self-serving suggestion, might I add, coming from someone whose job is to collect money from me. I thanked her for her suggestion and got off the phone thinking only one thing:
I need a new plan….I always need a new plan.
