The day that it was announced that Sallie Mae had been chosen to service the government loans (big surprise there) they also announced that they would be introducing a new payment option based a customer being deemed to be experiencing financial difficulties. The customer’s payment is capped at 15% of discretionary income and can be extended to 25 years. . After 25 years of repayment the balance will also be forgiven. The press release states that this was authorized by federal law to begin on July 1stThis can help students with the government loan debt but does nothing for any private student loan debt.
In regards to this repayment plan Albert lord (the CEO of Sallie Mae) is quoted in the press release as saying “Sallie Mae is committed to providing students not only with the resources needed to invest in higher education, but also with the tools to help them succeed afterward,”. So if he truly believes this he will be applying this to private loans also right?
The root cause of this problem still exists. The main problem is that people are going to school for $40,000 then when they are done with school all they can find is a minimum wage job in their selected field. The scenario I keep hearing about is culinary school. Some type of risk assessment needs to be done to see if you will be able to pay back student loans otherwise this has just become a subsidy to the crooks that push culinary degrees.
Sallie Mae has a calculator to see if the program would help you but the link is broken..
The problem I’ve had is that I sent in my paperwork in September of 2009 for the Income Based Repayment plan and they have STILL been able to process the paperwork because they are awaiting information from the IRS. (It is now January 14, 2010). Everytime I call they give me the run around while I scrape by to make my loan payments every month!
Just got all my tax refund taken by sallie mae. $4746.00. Before this, they managed to take $100.00 from 3 of my paychecks before i got let go. Just found out today about the refund. Im at a standstill… 3 kids, a wife… i had payments to make besides sally mae that i was counting that money for… Court fines. (big big sigh) just needed to vent…
With the goverment acting as the collector you are bound to get screwed. I am trying to pay these guys off as fast as I can.