Glenn
Did you every send me a DM or email. I know you wanted to chat.
Alicia
I introduce myself, my name is Christine, and my degree is in InfoSec. My debt is 215K and went to a profit university. I have four jobs and trying to retire in 5 more years after finishing my 120 qualified payments. I am living in SD, but I had problems with Federal Servicing Loans that are not accepting 12 qualified payments. Has been denied. I am working since 2009 with the same organization - and cannot retire until my 72 years old. Well, it is the short story of my problem.
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Hello Everyone,
My name is Sophia Keller. Iām 70 years old, and until this decade I managed to pay for my education and stay ahead. In 2012 I began a PhD in Public Policy and Administration. Inl 2016, with just 3 courses left ā only my dissertation remained, I was told Iād exhausted my loans. Then I learned that although my loan supposedly had a cap of 60k, the school had extended it without notifying me and I now owed 132,000 + ā and no degree. Attempts to query and discuss this went unanswered. I couldnāt afford a lawyer to challenge the school. I had planned to work off my debt by serving an underserved area, but without the degree thatās not an option.
Whatās most frustrating is that my school cheated me. But deep breath, Iām trying to make the best of the situation and at least dig out of this dreadful debt. Iāve always stayed on top of my expenses till now.
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Hello! Iām August (he/him). Currently unemployed digital strategist in the Northern VA area. I have a MA in Strategic Communication from American University and a BA in English from VCU. Really thought there would be a strong market for someone looking to work in communication, but it takes forever to get your foot in the door and into a position that pays the salary flyer after flyer told me would be waiting for me if I worked hard, got good grades, and followed the rules.
I have around over $98,000 in federal student loan debt that President Biden could cancel at any time and relieve an enormous amount of stress from young people of color like myself who want to purchase homes, volunteer their spare time helping others, spend money in the economy, support politicians seeking to earn our vote, etc. Happy to be in the fight with you all!
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Hey everyone! Iām weirdly excited to be here and be part of this collective action. My name is Stephanie Kass and have about $300,000 in law school debt. I graduated college in 2011 with little to no debt. I took out student loans for law school and graduated in 2014 with about $250,000 in debt. I had two repayment options: the 10-year plan (almost $2,000 a month, which I couldnāt afford) or income-based plan. I paid about $300 a month for a couple years and ultimately repaid about $30,000. The interest was so high, however, that my total went up to $300K. I have yet to make a dime. We followed the rules and put in the hard work. We kept our end of the bargain and the system did not. The amount of debt we owe collectively truly does make us the owners of these banks, lenders, etc. No one is coming to save us so letās save each other!
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Hello! Thank you for your work!
Iām new here and about to begin amassing debt for graduate school. I wonder if anyone has any advice at this phase of my process (choosing which loans to take, choosing lenders, for examples)? Iām so ignorant about these things, after having attended undergrad 30 years ago while state schools were more affordable, and my privileged social location and parents helped me.
I love the focus and commitments of this organization and look forward to deepening and broadening our shared claims and access to the commons and power with one another on our reparative, regenerative way toward collective liberation and a just society. <3
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Hey everyone! My name is Mariel (she/her). I have about $55K in graduate loans and am committed to working in public service for the next 10 years to qualify for loan forgiveness but with every passing year Iām less and less certain that that will actually happen, and so I want to get involved in revamping PSLF to make it actually functional.
My husband, who Iāve just invited to join, has over $100K in undergrad and grad loans. He joined the military to get school paid for but somehow the military was able to justify not paying for any part of his degree or paying off his loans, so heās been serving our country for 10 years without getting any educational benefit.
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Hi my name is Ana and this is the story how my daughter (and my husband and I) accumulated over $200K in student loans, most of them are private loans.
Our daughter was always a particularly good student.
Sheās an intelligent, kind-hearted and hardworking young women who, if it wouldnāt be for her mental illnesses, would have a scholarship throughout college, which would keep her student loans manageable and they would be federal loans not private ones.
But because of her mental illnesses she lost her scholarship and in return accumulated this insane amount of student debt.
She has social anxiety and has it from a very young age and throughout the years she developed more mental illnesses.
When we got her with a doctor and into therapy she got diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and panic attacks due to her social anxiety.
Sheās also a hypochondriac and is prone to obsessive thought spirals.
The high school years were hard for her.
She had days where she could not get out of bed because of her depressions, and the anxiety and panic attacks got worse, too.
But with the help of her therapist and doctor she got better, finished high school, and got a scholarship which should keep her student loans down.
Her psychiatrist and psychologist gave us a letter and told us we should registered her with the accessibility office at her college.
We did that right after we moved her into the dorm.
When she registered with the accessibility office, they promised her (and us) to take good care of her and that they will support her.
They promised us that they look out for students with mental health issues and accommodate their needs throughout the years.
After all the bureaucracy we had to go through to get her registered, the only thing they could offer her, was some leniency with due dates on assignments, but only if her professors agreed to this (yes, if the professor didnāt agree she would not even get this help).
She also was expected to go to each professor and explained her situation in the beginning of each semester.
Knowing about her social anxiety I was worried how she could do this.
How can she talk to a stranger about her most personal issues?
I was worried and confused how this should help her.
She finished her freshman year passing all her classes but getting worse with her depression and anxiety (unknown to us).
She came home for the summer and enjoyed being together with us and seeing her siblings. She told us that her depression and anxiety is still a daily struggle but assured us she has it under control.
But she didnāt have it under control (unknown to us).
She thought she can handle her mental health issues by herself. She wanted to proof us, and herself, that she is strong enough (and grown up enough) to deal with everything on her own.
When she returned to college she spiraled even further down, and out of control (unknown to us).
She tried to see a psychologist trough the mental health department at the university but was only able to see a psychology student because of this weird rule the university has.
Before any student can see a psychologist (MD) they need to see a psychology student for a couple of months.
At every appointment she got a different student and needed to tell her story from the beginning, but they didnāt actually know how to help her.
She also was not allowed to see a psychiatrist before she saw a professional psychologist (which was not for several months).
The procedure to make an appointment was also a nightmare, it was all too much for her.
Itās hard to make an appointment if youāre ill, and if youāre mentally ill, it becomes almost impossible.
And the fact that during summer thereās no mental health available (like mental illnesses take a break over the summer!) didnāt help either.
She couldnāt do it anymore, and of course couldnāt ask for help (because of her social anxiety) so she stopped going at once.
She thought nobody understands her and felt all alone in this endeavor to get better.
Nobody of the mental health department ever checked on her.
There she was, all alone in her dorm, scared and not knowing how to move on with life.
Still all unknown to us!
All our children know they can call 24/7. And they do!
So when she started not calling that often anymore I thought the classes keeping her busy, and that she is doing homework and studying and that sheās hanging out with her friends (I didnāt know she didnāt have any).
When I called her, she told me sheās doing fine, sheās attending classes and do well in them.
She was too embarrassed to tell me what really is going on and that she needed help.
She was too ashamed.
I had no reason not believing her, or to check up on her.
Neither her, nor her siblings never lied to us (other than the white lies as teenagers lol).
They were all good students and never really got into trouble.
So this lying was something new to us, but we also know that lying is very normal for mentally ill people, we just didnāt know this was going on with her.
She didnāt want to lie and felt awful about it, but her brain was messing with her, and she couldnāt deal with it at all.
That year (sophomore) got worse and worse. She fell into deep depression and severe social anxiety.
There were days and even weeks where she couldnāt leave her dorm room.
She couldnāt shower or take care of her room. She physically couldnāt get out of bed.
So she stopped going to her classes.
None of her professors ever checked on her, nor did her adviser.
She couldnāt email them either, because even thinking of contacting them over email made her physically sick and she had to throw up.
She was embarrassed of her illness, she thought she was a failure in the eyes of her professors, her classmates, society, and her family.
She thought sheās a burden to us and the world.
When she finally got out of this state of deep depression, she still couldnāt go back to her classes.
She couldnāt face her professors because of her social anxiety, and because she was so ashamed of her illness.
Even the thoughts of emailing or texting them made her physically sick.
She never got any email or text from her professors or her adviser, it was like they didnāt care.
It was like she never existed for them.
So she stopped attending and failed the whole semester. All unknown to us.
I should have checked up on her grades, but this was never an issue in high school, so I was just blindly believing her. And she was very good in hiding all of it from us. I knew she has depression and social anxiety but never in my dreams did I imagine how bad it was.
When we got a letter from the university letting us know that because of her poor attendance and failing her classes she lost all her scholarships, we immediately drove our RV up to her and spent time with her.
My husband could work from home (RV) so we could stay as long as needed to help her get back on her feet.
We got her professional counseling (outside the university) and helped her to get back on her feet.
Together we managed to stabilize her and bring her to a point where she can take care of herself again.
During this summer she met a group of people who, to this day, are still her friends.
They told her that she could have taken a medical leave all the way up to her last day of her classes and would not have her GPA affected because of failing classes (and probably not lose her scholarship).
That btw, would have been her advisersā job to tell her, but she failed to do this, and so, her GPA took a nosedive.
She had a hard time to keep her GPA above 2.0 because she still had to drop classes sometimes because she was too overwhelmed with everything.
She got a job with the university but had to leave it because it was just too much for her next to school and live in general.
Due to her low GPA and poor attendance record she was not able to get any federal loans anymore.
We talked to her adviser and counselors and professors in hope they could help us.
They told us we could appeal to the board.
They said we needed a statement from her adviser saying that she has now a support system in place, that she sees a therapist and that she has a plan how to finish her degree.
Her doctors from back home even wrote letters to the appeal board.
Her adviser agreed to write a statement, but she took too long to write it (even though we reminded her many times) and therefore we missed the deadline of the appeals board.
The board said this was our responsibility and even though we showed them the emails we had between the adviser and us, they did not reverse their decision.
That meant that starting her 3rd year she needed to take out private student loans, and because of her low GPS we needed to cosign the loans.
On top of not helping her they also did not take her failed classes off her transcript (even though they promised her they will do so, because of her mental illnesses) and because of this, she needed to do a fifth year, and needed to add thousands more to her student debt.
But she never gave up and achieved her dream of getting a degree.
Not only did she get a degree, but she did it all by herself. She overcame every hurdle, learned how to live, and deal with her mental illnesses, worked hard and graduated. But for what price?
Many times she said she should never have gone to college, but then, she wanted a degree so badly.
Her sisters already got their degrees, so there was this kind of pressure on her (pressure from herself, not the family) to finish college, too.
During her junior year she really turned herself around (with help from her therapist and friends).
She learned how to deal with her bad days and what her stressors are.
She learned how to reach out and how to take care of herself.
She even took a summer job as a food bank associate.
During her last year she was working as an after-school care site administrator.
She worked with underprivileged kids. She loved this job because she
could help them, she could make a difference in these kidsā live.
This was an hourly job, and she didnāt make enough money to support herself, so she also got a job as a deliver driver in the evening.
But because of COVID-19 she lost both jobs.
But she made it! She graduated college and now has a bachelorās degree.
It took her 5 years, but she made it!
We are so proud of her; she came a long way. And most of all, she is proud of herself.
She reached out and got help, she learned how to live with her mental health problems, she got a job, and she got a degree, but for what price?
She learned so much during her 5 years of college.
Not only did she earned a bachelorās degree, but she also learned how to live with her mental illnesses. This is a huge accomplishment.
Her graduation got canceled because of COVID-19, thatās sad but we all know it was for the best.
College can be hard for some people. The kids must grow up quickly and deal with so much new stuff. She also had to learn to deal with her mental illnesses.
Iām scared so much every time I think about how high her student loan debt is.
How will she be able to pay for all this loans? And a car, and insurance, and an apartment?
How can she pay for food and medical expenses?
Iām so worried how she can enjoy life with all this debt.
Will this affect her mental status again? Will she fall into depression again?
Iām worried that she starts thinking again that sheās a burden to us and the world.
Iām worried that this will make her depressed and anxious again.
Iām worried about my husband and me, too. We are over 55 and now have $200K loans to pay off next to all the other loans we have.
I just got a job so I can help her pay the monthly payments. She is not able to do that on her own.
I am still angry at the University.
They promised her to help her, but they did not.
They promised her to take her failed classes off her transcript, but they did not.
Iām angry at the counselor who didnāt care enough to help us.
The appeal board did not reverse their decision, although we did everything right.
All these false promises from the university brought us to $200K student debt, and over half of them are with a private bank, which are much more expensive to pay back.
Is it our fault that we are in such high debt? Yes and no.
Yes, because we should have informed ourselves better before we co-signed the loans, but we were over our heads with all what was going on, and the financial office at the university told us that this was our daughters only chance to get a degree.
No, because if the university would have been there for her and would have helped her fairly, we all would not be in this mess.
My husband and I immigrated to the US in 1996 and we were totally not familiar with universities and student loans. This is no excuse, I know, but still we think the university cheated our daughter from a positive college experience and burdened her (and us) with so much student loans that she probably will have to pay back her entire life.
I would love to get help with any advice on how to handle these private loans, but Iām worried thereās no help for us.
Thank you for taking the time reading my (our) story, sorry it was so long!
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Hello. My name is Allison. I attended the Art Institutes in MN from '04-'07 and have a bachelor of fine art degree in photography. My private student loan lender is currently suing me for $163,000 of unpaid debt. Iām in works with a lawyer to prove that EDMC is a fraud and that my loan was taken out under a fraudulent contract making it void. Does anyone know if crowdfunding for something like this would work? My lawyer said that if I win, this could help others that attended AI all over the U.S.
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ā¦ from the Mid-City 'Hood in Los Angeles, California ā¦ as one of the many of our Peoples who have been forced into debt to maintain and enforce servitude to the moneyed interests of the political, economic, and social system that exists around us ā¦ I share a stongly positive and hopeful message of SOLIDARITY! ā¦ WE take care of US!
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Hi all!
My nameās Dave Dixon. Iām a 36 year old graduate student currently in the philosophy MA program at Cal State, Los Angeles. I plan on moving onwards to a PhD in philosophy and, if successful, it will be the fourth stop on my educational journey: from community college, to UCLA, and now Cal State, L.Aā¦ In the process, Iāve accumulated a little over $35,000 in student loan debt. Because of my relative poverty, Iāve never paid a cent on my loans but the principal continues steadily growing from interest. I face the near-term prospect, now, of making student loan payments from other student loans 
Whereas so far Iāve been okay, I know that so, so many havenāt been as lucky. I knew someone years ago, an immigrant from Nigeria, living paycheck to paycheck with over $100,000 in debt, and constantly harassed by people at DOE trying to collect something, anything, from them. I remember the constant fear they felt and moments of anxiety so intense it brought them to tears. This person came to the United States to pursue becoming a doctor but, instead, has lived for more than a decade as prey to the harm that the federal government insists they bear, and the ever-present threat of falling into homelessness. The fact that the US Government has consistently been among the most profitable organizations in the nation in the last decade because of student debt collection boils my blood. That it should profit from the support its own citizens need in order to secure both what has become, in many places, an economic necessity and the desireāthat it promotes!āfor education is so absurdly immoral that itās painful just to think about.
I heard of the Debt Collective years ago but have been reluctant to get involved. This reluctance comes from a skepticism toward my own political judgement that I developed after spending 7 years in a political cult (the LaRouche movement). However, I suspect that like most of you, though thereās been more success recently in a politics open to structural financial reforms like student debt cancellation, the inertia of institutional habits and ideology has become frustratingly demoralizing on a very personal level. I felt I could not longer refrain from joining Debt Collective. Iām happy to be a member and contribute what I can to future efforts.
I wish you allāus allāthe best of luck in this insane world.
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Hello, my name is Narise Connor I live in upstate New York. Iāve been doing income based repayment since I graduated in 2018, my payments have always been at $0, but the interest has really piled up. My intention is not to pay! When it comes to action, my skill set lies in food- foraging, farming, and preserving. Iām always working on growing that skill set, so that I can help fellow strikers with food security.
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Hi Narise! I am also in Upstate NY. I am between Ithaca and Binghamton- where are you located?
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Hi everyone! My name is Jamie. I live in upstate NY. I have LOTS of student loan debt (like $150,000 ish), mostly from 2 graduate programs at two different schools (one being an expensive private school). I am a social worker and so this type of coalition building is something I am very passionate about and value deeply. I am excited about getting involved.
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Hello, Iām Terry Ellsworth and am an electronics technician out of Virginia Beach. I was transferred from DC to Virginia in 2013, and my wife was unable to get unemployment while she was pregnant with our son (Maryland said we had to go to Virginia, Virginia said we had to go to Maryland). We used the VA loan to buy a house- however, my pay wound up dropping to $800 a month, and it took a lot of time fighting with PSD to get my pay fixed. With problems with our house, being one-income (my wife is a teacher, and for two years, she was home with our son), we wiped out our savings and investments and wound up in some $60,000 in credit card debt and $40,000 in home improvement debt. Weāre paying it down, but it feels like one step forward, two steps back, and it makes it hard to save.
My wife has $18,000 in student loan debt, and I have $5000 left. Hers is public, mine is through Sallie Mae. (PSLF only did $5000 of my wifeās student loan)
We tried the Dave Ramsey method (which is especially unrealistic, and I am opposed to tithing, which he so insists on), and other methods to bring it down, but honestly, after all weāve been through (and going through), it would be nice to be debt-free somehow, and any help would be nice.
Also, once weāre debt-free, Iād love to help others become free of debt as well, and work towards initiatives to help people through hard times without being forced into a bank- including reforming banks and lenders to not be predatory.
Growing up my parents went through bankruptcy and foreclosure/shortsale of their home.
I graduated college with $55k in student loans and then consumer debt getting me over $100k in debt total. Car, motorcycle, credit cards.
I paid off all the debt except for the student loans. I paid on student loans for 13 years until getting PSLF a few months ago. Now my wife and I have just our mortgage debt.
Getting my forgiveness to go through was a struggle and I got Business Insider to do a story about it.
I just joined the debt collective and hope to participate in getting student loans forgiven for all.
From medical bankruptcy, medical billing and insurance BS, student loans, and other debt issues, all areas of my life have been shaped by our screwed up system.
hi @narise.connor , hi @jamiebercaw! iām also in NY state (ithaca) and seeking fellow believers in debt abolition & free college for all. iām somewhere around $200k in debt, Iām not really clear on the exact number because itās absolute bonkers to me and iām choosing to resist giving navient anymore of my time. this community is super empowering and iād love to connect with people in my area to resist this injustice together.
Hi, Iām Beth.
About 30K in private loans (was an unconscionable 12% interest at one point before refinancing) plus about 25K in govāt subsidized loans, all for a private undergrad college. I work at a nonprofit since graduating and have been hoping there will be a restart in loan forgiveness for nonprofit workers but Iām not hopefull. Iām here to help advocate for forgiveness for all in the US.
Hi, my name is Arsalan Kouser, and I am from South Carolina. I graduated grad school with quite a bit of debt. I recently moved near the twin cities of Minnesota and I am nervous for loan repayments to begin again.
Any other people located in Minnesota?
Hi there! My name is Raquel and I am currently in LA and planning on moving back to the SF Bay Area. I have old student loans from undergraduate studies that are now 17 years old. So happy that this kind of union exists. I have been a part of labor unions before and have learned so much and am grateful if what is possible with this kind of grassroots organizing. Looking forward to connecting with others in SoCal, NorCal or California frankly. I am so ready to say goodbye to all student loan debts for all present and future generations. Glad to be here!