Question: Some of us here know from first-hand experience about the dark side of the highly profitable big business student loan market by Salliemae, banks, the US Gov’t., and my personal favorite, student aid commissions (aka guarantors)?

I know there’s one thread going on here now that specifically addresses Salliemae. The more you pay, the more you owe; the relentless cap-&-gown-to-the-grave collections…

When you hear about students who have defaulted on their government-backed loans, the student is always portrayed as the one who has taken advantage of the government, when the opposite is true. (I paid 5 points, upfront, taken right off the top of my student loans, plus a 1% ‘guarantee fee’…never saw this money, just the “net proceeds” — if this had been a mortgage, wouldn’t that be termed predatory lending?).

Just wondered if anyone has summed the ugly truth up in a book or in-depth article?

Answer: That’s a good question. I collected some stories, mostly from legal casenotes, and put them on this page: http://www.geocities.com/student_loans_bankruptcy/stories.htm. I also collected some earlier discussions in this newsgroup at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3215/ng_main.htm.

I ran a Google search. Here’s the URL: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_qdr=a… 2horror+story%22+%22student+loan%22&btnG=Google+Search

A few selected hits from that search:

http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles2002/Articles0302… on0302.html has what appears to be an art collector’s or professor’s perspective on student loans.

http://www.house.gov/garymiller/Legislation/HR_4555/Tell_your_story/b… l_your_story.html is a congressman asking about taxation of the military’s student loan program.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/grads/a/Don.Allison/fahs.html has a collection of financial aid horror stories.

I also did a simple Amazon.com search for “student loans.” See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field… ds=student%20loan&search-type=ss&bq=1/102-2078053-4840114. One interesting title from that search: “Condemning Students to Debt: College Loans and Public Policy.” See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0807737437/qid=10345342… -1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2078053-4840114?v=glance.

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