“Dear Steve,
My father owns his own small law firm (him a secretary and a para legal) his income was about $200,000 a year when I was 17 but it included running his business (rent, paying employee salaries, health care, taxes.. etc). The government said we made to much $ for me qualify for federal loans so he was forced to take out private loans for me. I have $130,000 in private student loans. I currently have a 25 year loan with sallie mae and my payments are $1000 a month. I currently make 63,000 a year and this is about 20% of my income a year. I am now 25 years old. and receive no assistance in paying these loans off.
Is there anyway to lower my payments, reduce my debt, or receive any type of government assistance (like the recently announced forgiveness for federal loans after 20 years) for private loans or am I just going to be screwed and piled under a mountain of debt for the next 25 years of my life?
Mike”
The Answer:
Dear Mike,
SallieMae loans are not government backed loans and thus have none of the benefits of current programs like the Income Based Repayment program or IBR that are available to government backed loans. SallieMae has taken a very hard stance and basically said “tough luck” to people that took out their loans.
I’m afraid that even a potential Obama Student Loan Forgiveness program will not be of any help with SallieMae loans.
Student loans are a trap. They’ve always been a trap. People took out massive loans never thinking about repayment and of all the loans and student loans are among the worst being essentially unable to be included in bankruptcy.
If you have a credit or debt question you’d like to ask just use the online form. I’m happy to help you totally for free.