Here is a list of things Alan Collinge has quit so far in his life. I think I see a pattern forming.
1.) Job at Caltech - after graduating with 3 degrees in engineering, Collinge took a job at Caltech. After about a year Collinge decided that his “wage at Caltech wasn’t huge”, and that it would be better to quit that job and look for a nice cushy government job. So, “In Summer, 2001, I left my job at Caltech with the belief that I would find a higher paying job.”
2.) Paying back his student loan to Sallie Mae - apparently, Mr. Collinge believed that he did not have to make payments for the money he borrowed to get his 3 degrees. So he quit doing it. In his own words: “ I applied for a hardship deferment with Sallie Mae on December 12th, 2001. They denied it, and instead place my account into default on December 13th. It would be about 2 years before I again found any type of full time employment.” As far as I know, he still does not make payment on the money he borrowed.
3.) Student Loan Justice Yahoo Group - I guess Alan didn’t feel like they were doing enough for him or his group, so he quit. He also claims that this site influenced that decision. Here is his message to the group:
“Hey all.
I’ve decided to unsubscribe from the yahoo group. My goal is to convince Congress to restore the standard consumer protections to student loans, and unfortunately this group is not serving that purpose to a significant degree. I am happy that it is being used for information exchange, etc., but I have to devote my efforts to my mission, and so I hope you can all understand that. I will only say that this is not what I had intended, and that each of you must take leadership for this issue. There is no reason for one person to be standing up publicly and taking all the shots. Anyone can be doing what I am doing, and some are, although many more need to. Perhaps more of you will come around to this, but it won’t be a result of my asking or telling you to, I am convinced.
There have been a few accomplishments as a result of this group being formed, but they have been few, and far between, and on balance, are not worth the effort that I have expended on the group. I’m only one guy, and I can only do so much. I’ve tried to shoot straight, and speak plainly about this time and time again, but I can only repeat myself so many times before it’s time to move on. Additionally, the anonymous owners of the Studentloanjusticee
So I will continue on with the website, the state chapters, etc, and I can be reached at the same email as always, and of course I wish you all continued luck in your endeavors to convince Congress to restore standard consumer protections to student loans.
Regards,
Alan
Alan Collinge, StudentLoanJustice.
Please support the StudentLoanJustice.
I don’t consider this a victory really. I have stated over and over again that all I want is for Alan to pay back the money he rightfully owes. I would also like to see a little personal responsibility taken, but I realize that there is less of a chance of that happening than there is of him actually paying back his loans.
So for all you group members and supporters of Alan Collinge, feel free to support his PAC, or better yet, just open up the closest window and throw your money out of it. Better yet, why not take that money and apply it towards your loans.
If you have anything else that he quit to add to the list, please let me know.
11 responses so far ↓
1 kgotthardt // Feb 20, 2008 at 6:45 am
Still not sure why you are singling out Alan. YOU want ALAN to pay back HIS loans, eh? What are you, his collection agency or something? One wonders what your motivation is and why you are targeting him (besides the fear that he has a real audience and you don’t).
Furthermore, Alan didn’t leave studentloanjustice.org. He left a Yahoo CHAT group! There are moderators in there related to the group. Alan has just put his focus somewhere else. Remember that a chatgroup is a place to air ideas, ask questions, learn more about the broader spectrum, learn how to APPLY those ideas, and get moral support from others. For some people, it just get to be a pit of complaining and a waste of time, but for others, it’s helpful. Get your facts straight before you spout off about groups you know little about and PEOPLE you know NOTHING about.
You obviously have not read the stories at http://www.studentloanjustice.org. You obviously have not read the number of other ideas STUDENTS have come up with to help them pay off the ORIGINAL AMOUNTS OF THEIR LOANS. You obvioulsy know very little except that you want to bash ALAN.
If you would like to read even ONE TRUE story, go to http://luxuriouschoices.blogspot.com/2008/02/dire-necessity-of-student-loan-reform.html
This isn’t about Alan. It’s about a nation of students who were led like lambs to predatory lenders and schools, who NEVER would have taken out loans if they thought they had no consumer protection, and who STRUGGLE for YEARS to survive and keep their families afloat.
Get a grip.
2 Sammi // Feb 26, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Oooohhhhh! I get it! Your 5th grade assignment was to create a web page and post mindless essays. Here ya go:
F minus
3 Bah // Mar 1, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Your site, poor blinded by $$$ collection agency/loan company cohort, reminds me of the matrix. You have your cables stuck into our spines and want to suck us dry. Of course, the loan companies and their piranha collection companies, don’t want to kill us. Just keep draining us to keep their batteries charged. It’s all a scam. Sallie Mae makes more money on defaulted loans, making up all kinds of unjustified fees and penalites, than it does on straight loans. And without artificial help from rethuglicans in Congress, we can all see how well those bright executives ran their companies. (They didn’t - it was all about getting a huge stock cash out for top execs).
This isn’t about students refusing to pay loans. It’s about greedy companies that paid money to lawmakers to game the system, tilt the rules in their favor (bankruptcy) and then reap the windfall.
Well done. You should all be proud. When my kid grows up, I want him to be just like Al Lord. Lord believes he is god-like and deserves millions upon millions just because….well, because. On his tombstone will be the same slogan the ectified lifer who runs this site seems to love “Just pay your loans.”
Not exactly an inspiring epitaph.
But, Lord and his ilk aren’t exactly an inspiring bunch.
Just like this site.
4 Friend // Mar 14, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I have been a good friend of Alan’s for 21 years and I know his history, the TRUE stories, and his character. The inaccuracies, outright lies and personal attacks I have read on your site are very disturbing; and I’m glad my friend could care less what you think. You miss the point going after him, and anyone who takes this crap to be gospel truth without really doing ACCURATE research is an idiot. The point of the TRUTHS he champions are for thousands of bamboozled victims of the crooks at the student loan companies. Someone needed to start taking a stand; and I’m glad he did. My pal is a brilliant man. Not perfect, but much closer than you. Get a life, and choose an issue you know something about.
5 admin // Mar 15, 2008 at 10:22 am
Thanks for your comments friend. I’m sure Alan is a great guy to be friends with. I just happen to disagree with his views on the student loan industry and so i reprint text that is written by Alan himself and others from various Student Loan Justice groups. I don’t really understand how you can accuse me of “outright lies” when everything I have printed here is straight from Alan’s comments on other blogs or from a yahoo group that he has now distanced himself from.
On to the topic of personal attacks. If you truly do know Mr. Collinge as well as you say, then i’m sure you must be familiar with his tactics. Alan loves to call people names, loves to accuse an entire industry of being criminals, and seemingly will stop at nothing to get his point of view out there. So pointing out his short-comings is something I do not feel the slightest bit bad about doing.
For every person who has been “bamboozled” by a student loan company, there are a thousand who are thankful to have had the opportunity to attend college and improve their lives. Just because it didn’t work out for Alan, who had every single chance a man could ask for, doesn’t mean the entire system is broken. This site was started for one reason and one reason only, to expose Alan Collinge for the man I believe him to be. His cause is as self-serving as mine. I’m quite sure that the day he changes the law and is able to bankrupt his loans is the last day we ever hear from Mr. Alan Collinge.
6 Jay // May 16, 2008 at 5:09 am
“admin” ,
Here is what matters most about your website. You traipse the fine line of libel and have attracted the eye of my lawyer who will follow your every word and context of what you claim are “…straight from Alan’s comments on other blogs or from a yahoo group…”
That is a warning to you and your obvious corporate affiliation. Next will be a cease and desist letter if this goes any further.
Now, back to business and the reason why I have a lawyer. I was taken by your employers..oops I mean Sallie Mae. I not only had written documentation of what my loan amount was to be, but also my interest rate, my monthly payment estimate, and a fee schedule of things and services that Sallie Mae supposedly does, up to and including no charge (at the time) for forbearance, and also not including the $50 per loan charge above 3 loans within one loan account.
So, fast forward to only 2 years later, my interest rate triples (WHILE IN SCHOOL), my monthly payment goes way more than they said it would be by the time I get the first bill it was also triple the original amount. And each bill included an extra $150 on top of the outrageous payment that was required before they would even process the payments.
Since then they have managed to both keep me from keeping a job by calling my places of work 10-15 times per day, and also keeping me from work by posting both libel (hence the lawyer) on my credit report that has caused me to lose multiple job offers and opportunities due to their predatory business practices. They knew exactly what they were doing when they charged more than I made at the time since the very first bill came.
All I did was dare to go to school.
If you are one of those people who have some sort of entitlement issue because you were born with a silver spoon in hand then already you have nothing of value to say on the internet in regards to student loan justice and a student bill of rights.
Frankly, this whole website and the contents of which is nothing more than a very cowardly thing to do. A new low.
7 Gordon Wayne Watts // May 16, 2008 at 7:27 am
How do you know that the industry (as a whole) is *not* a criminal racket?
If the industry were so good, then why can you not get bankruptcy protection for a student loan -but you can get it for a credit card that was run up by drug and prostitute use?
If the industry were so good, then why have the inflation-adjusted costs for college education skyrocketed?
* http://www.duluthbudgeteer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=22159§ion=Columnists&columnist=Virgil%20Swing&freebie_check&CFID=35767393&CFTOKEN=14199466&jsessionid=8830555c7794e23133b9
This article shows how inflation-adjusted costs for education have gone up. Here’s a small quote:
“Students at the University of Minnesota Duluth will pay $10,066 in tuition and required fees for the coming school year. For my first year at UMD (’56-’57), I paid $138 — yep, $46 a quarter (the system used then).
But what about inflation? Good question. Factoring in inflation for the 52 years in between, tuition and fees would be $1,093.85 if only inflation had boosted those costs.
Where has that extra $8,972 come from?
That’s a question Minnesota legislators and university regents should ask themselves. And, if they don’t ask it and get an answer, taxpayers should insist they do.” (Virgil Swing Budgeteer News; Published Thursday, May 15, 2008)
With kind regard,
Gordon Wayne Watts, LAKELAND, Florida, USA
8 Gordon Wayne Watts // May 16, 2008 at 7:29 am
Here is a good link to that article:
http://www.duluthbudgeteer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=22159§ion=Opinion
and its related search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Students+at+the+University+of+Minnesota+Duluth+will+pay+%2410,066+in%22&hl=en&filter=0
GW Watts
9 Will // Aug 25, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Anyone in America can get a student loan because the federal government guarantees them. In return, student loans are very difficult to disrupt in bankruptcy. This quid pro quo allows students who otherwise could not afford higher education to better themselves. Defaults threaten the viability of the education system, which has helped many.
Each student decides whether or not to attend college, and how to finance their debt. If the student is not able to convert that education to a good job, it is no one’s responsibility but their own. That is the harsh reality. Each person is responsible for their own financial decisions; it is not the government’s job to tell anyone that spending $50K for a cooking degree from Katherine Gibbs is not going to be worthwhile. The government insures the loan, not the risk the student cannot get a decent return on investment on their education. If college is too expensive, don’t take out the loans and don’t go to college. If you decide to take out loans to attend college, be prepared to pay back the loans because you alone made all the decisions. As far as I am aware, the government doesn’t force you to go to college or borrow money to do so.
I sympathize with those who are overwhelmed with their student loans, but there are many out there who have benefited from the access to higher education the student loan program provides. Everyone on Student Loan Just made a grownup decision to borrow money to go to school. If they aren’t doing as well as they think they should be, the government and the American taxpayer are the last parties to blame: the responsible party is staring at them in the mirror.
10 Terrance // Aug 26, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I will make one point that struck me. There is a fundamental rule that I thought everyone with common sense knew: Never quit a job unless you already have another one! Well I have always followed that rule, I have been terminated from too many jobs, where my job performance was excellent, because my bi-polar disorder makes my attendance less than stellar. Also, my job performance was less than excellent when I had been awake for 2 or 3 days. Besides episodes of depression, coming off that mania and finally getting some sleep makes sleeping through an alarm inevitable. I nonetheless kept my student loans out of default and did make a number of years of payments. At 44, I recently out of necessity, having to face the harsh reality that I could not provide for myself reliably, I applied and quickly received SSI. It is $637 a month. When calculating that amount, how much at the absolute minimum I needed to survive, the government did not say don’t forget to add in his student loan payment, but now all of a sudden the government wants to add it in! They can garnish my SSI payment! The ICR plan will leave me with a huge tax debt at 65 that I won’t be able to afford on SSI. My inability to repay is not from lack of effort, or from lack of desire. I want to repay my student loans (although it did not work out as planned for me) so the money will be there for the next generation (although I have no children). But: squeeze me like a turnip so Al Lord and his associates can get filthy rich! You got to be insane. I’ll get rid of my cat Al, you can have my $20 if I can find any place in your swimming pool of $1,000 bills to put it. I do not resent you making a living Al, and I know I’m talking to Al on this web page. But, I’m not the one abusing the student loan system, Al, YOU are the one abusing the student loan system. That money you stole should go to the financial aid departments of community colleges across the county.
11 Tedd // Sep 4, 2008 at 7:00 am
I find it very interesting that not only did he quit a job with no place to land. However, more important is the fact that he simply let his loans go into default when he was a short order cook, rather than working out a hardship deferral or an income based payment plan. I noticed a similar patern with many “victims” on SLJ’s site. When the going got tough, they simply stopped paying. Try doing that on a mortgage.
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