Student Loan Justice Exposed was created to expose the truth about the PAC Student Loan Justice and the techniques they use in an attempt to influence change. The groups leader, Alan Collinge is a wonderful example of who they are. His story can be found on my original post and the more you familiarize yourself with his comments and life, the more you will understand why this blog was started. I’m here to give a different opinion and welcome comments and submissions from anyone, including the SLJ members.
I hope you enjoy my blog.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Charles // Jul 30, 2008 at 12:23 am
I’m new at this and right now I’m struggling with keeping current with my student loan. I would like to see law changes to give relief and fairness to student loan borrowers who need it. Not necessarily those who don’t need it!
Looking at what I’m seeing with all this fighting and bad mouthing eachother in this group is very disturbing to me. Instead of trying to work with eachother to help push for fair change in the laws all I see is NEGATIVE wasted energy trying to destroy eachother. It’s time to mature up and become task oriented.
I need relief and fairness just like a lot of others do too and am willing to devote some of my precious time to that cause. How about some leadership and initiative and working with eachother for fairness instead of fighting eachother. Where are the petitions to sign, the projects to work on, the campaign to work on.
It’s time to grow up and accomplish something positive and fair.
2 Mary Mary // Aug 4, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I agree with you Charles. I went to SLJ for support. I have struggled with my student loans for years. I realize now that I was naive in taking out all that debt to go to a school that was beyond my means and studying something that wasn’t an easy market to break into. But that was then, this is now.
I was very troubled to see all the bickering back and forth. I thought it was a support group. I regularly would write to legislators, journalists, I even interviewed with one for my local paper. I was really offended that I was accused of not doing my fare share. It got to the point where I just stopped posting because I was afraid of what sort of responses I would get.
I don’t bear no grudge to Alan Collinge, though. The student loan machine is not a fair one. I’m all for paying off my debts but to be continuously harassed and not given flexibility when it came to a fair payment plan. I was expected to pay more for my student loans than my rent at a time where I was living paycheck to paycheck.
Nevertheless, SLJ seems to have an attitude and doesn’t really offer any type of support only demands.
And I hate the word “deadbeat”. Just because someone isn’t in a position to pay off their loans doesn’t make them a deadbeat. I want to pay off my loans, I just can’t! I’m on the verge of homelessness right now.
3 albert lord // Aug 6, 2008 at 2:31 am
Yeah . . . it’s important to protect sallie mae, their CEO who is building his own private golf course, and the inherent corruption of the NASFAA.
Financial Aid Directors were fired at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, USC, Univ. of Texas, and others after it was disclosed that they were compesated by student loan companies.
The COO of the Department of Education lost her job after the corruption was exposed in the Dept. of Education where some were taking stock from the student loan industry. Funny how that COO and the individual taking the bribes were both formerly with Sallie Mae before being “appointed” to the Dept. of Education.
The NASFAA defended this corruption all the way to the end. After the corruption could no longer be denied, they “adopted” a code of conduct. Some of the NASFAA members are so lazy, they aren’t capable of working anywhere else but the bloated bureaucracies of modern American education.
Sallie Mae, the recipient of government bailout, subsidies, and protection has three corporate jets. Not one, not two - but three. The CEO, who pulled over $250 million out of Sallie Mae this decade, is building his own, private, 18 hold golf course. He’s just that kind of guy. The kind of guy with such lack of self-discipline that his self-indulgent gruffness and vulgarity in an investor conference call cost his investors literally billions of dollars in value.
Student Loan workers are privileged and protected classs of losers too lazy and incapable to work in the private, competitive sector. Without government subsidies and handouts, I guess they’d just be lazy losers in the central government. Or even worse - piece of shit lobbyists.
Say hi to your whore friends Buck McKeon and John Boehner.
4 hinchey // Aug 12, 2008 at 11:25 pm
what the hell? I am just getting to know this blog but I am reading some of your links and I can’t honestly believe you are defending the student loan industry. Who cares about Alan Collinge? Educational Finance is completely screwed up this country. Mary probably performs some really great low paying service to society like being a social worker to abused kids or something but instead of feeling valued she says oh I should have pursued something more marketable. The problem is that in this country we honor the gordon gecko’s and ridicule the Mr. Coopers. I agree with Alfred.
Sallie Mae is a special government entity that is subsidized by the government but has no oversight. Look at the “Mae” people..and remember the other “mae”…Fannie.
5 admin // Aug 13, 2008 at 10:49 am
Hinchey,
I am not defending the student loan industry and I personally HATE Sallie Mae, but that doesn’t mean that I can just go and weasel out of the obligations I made to whatever student loan company holds my loans.
I could NOT, I repeat NOT have gone to college without student loans, and I can guarantee you that I would be unhappy with whatever crappy job I would have ended up with had I not gone to College.
So to answer your question, “who cares about Alan Collinge?”, the answer is me. I care that this deadbeat borrowed money to get three degrees. I care that he had a decent job at a California University that he freely quit. I care that he decided it was more important to visit Alaska than it was to pay back his loans. And I care that people like him now want to back out of their obligation to pay back loans and screw the rest of us out of the money that THEY owe. If you think defaulters don’t hurt the loan industry, take a look at the credit crisis that is crippling our country.
As I have stated time and time again on here, I do not like paying my student loan bill every month, but I do it because it is a contract that I entered into. Nobody twisted my arm, nobody lied to me, and nobody tried to take advantage me. I am not a “victim” like so many of those people at Student Loan Justice pretend to be. I made certain choices in my life and I own up to them. Alan Collinge is exactly what is wrong with this country, and in my opinion he should be exposed for what he is.
Hope that answers your question Hinchey.
6 AmericanDust // Aug 26, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Man this site has really taken off… very nice looking. I’m glad I played a small role in inspiring it. Keep up the good work!
7 margo // Sep 13, 2008 at 7:32 pm
My student loans have been consolidated with Higher Ed, how do I contact my ombudsman because every letter to my student loan company Direct Loans, never responds. I call to try to talk to a supervisor they tell me that might not happen even if I go into default Here’s my problem: I’m 51, owe 153,000. am a social worker (in psych hospital) and payments are 1400. per month the interest alone is 660. and this is for 25 years (so I’ll be 76!!) My special situation is I was out on Social Security Disability for over 7 years and this cranked up capitalized interest, but the original amounts were 60,000 and 30,000. I can’t negotiate anything, I found out I could have gotten a disability hardship (but chose not to because I knew when I felt better I wanted to finish my education) so I’ve snowballed with the overall note. I keep getting notices that I’m in “Negative Amortization” and cannot get anyone on 800number to tell me what that really means Can you please help me ?
8 Ryan // Sep 13, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Interesting how the author of this web site acts and behaves as if he represents the views of taxpayers. I pay taxes too and need relief with my oveer 120,00 student debt and 55,000 a year job. I wish I could go back in time I would not have gone to school . I could have driven a truck or something then the only debt I woud have is for a house if I bought one. But no use worrying. The student loan system is messed up. There really should be no student loans period. Everyone should have a chance to go to college or recieve some kind post high school training for free. With a skilled labor force the goverment brings in more taxes the gdp increases things are much better. It’s not fair to its own people for the gov to be putting people into servitude. So everyones thinking is still inside the box in that student loans are okay. If the governmennt would make them like otherloans that would be good. For instance, instead of giving an 18 year old , with no credit history a loan, they should have the parents cosign. Also if student or parents credit score is low then they should recieve no loan. Why on earth would a loan be given to a credit risk? These measures are not in place because the powers that be understand that far fewer people would go to school and they would be forced to deal with a workforce that is uneducated and trained. to anyone reading this my suggestion is to not take out student loan. If you can’t afford school then don’t go. A lot of people have made without even a high school education
Best of luck
9 Sophia // Sep 14, 2008 at 8:05 am
I’m grateful that the first two posters have left messages that are sound. I think instead of bickering, the two of you people both for and against each other, would be better served by teaming up and making this problem better understood.
You both have college degrees. So use them to serve other people. This is just plain ridiculous. I could use some help navigating the channels and would like to renegotiate my loan. That doesn’t make me a deadbeat. That makes me asking for good government service. Why should the public get stuck with my inflated bill?
Lets not waste Americans money. In any other credit area I can renegotiate. Why not here? And the silliness about saying I knew what I got into so I made my bed now lie in it, is well, just unrealistic. People go to college with the promise of a brighter future. Nobody takes out loans thinking, they wont be able to pay. Nobody! So lets stop looking to blame people instead of facing reality.
Let’s admit theres things about this issue that should be changed for the better. Whats the fear in that sort of change? Can we not find common ground? That to me is where we should start. Lets work together not lay blame. End of sermon. Anyone wanting to write me can at sophia@catskill.net. Thank you. xo Sophia
PS The two sides here would make for a much livelier debate if you two would agree to disagree then team up to push the issue forward. Did the two of you take public speaking in college? If not, both go sign up for a course together. lololol
10 Dan // Nov 6, 2008 at 5:34 pm
OK, I’m confused. I don’t really understand the position of this site. It seems that it’s aimed at destroying the reputation of Alan Collinge. Why? Because he’s said or done some foolish things? OK…but what is your economic perspective?
I haven’t heard anyone take a free-market approach to this problem. In these times of social corporatism, “too big to fail,” and $700 billion dollar bailouts it seems like we’ve forgotten the shape of a free market and its great contributions to freedom and liberty. In free markets, the solution to inability to pay can be summed up in one word: bankruptcy. Here the lender takes responsibility for a bad bet, and the debtor starts over from zero. This is by no means a “free pass.” Who in their right mind would *want* to start over from zero? There’s an excellent article on the libertarian Ludwig von Mises web site: http://mises.org/
The special status granted to student loans i.e. that they can not be discharged under the condition of inability to pay like other loans is a striking example of corporate socialism. But here in this age of sound bites, “red vs. blue,” and slogans I fear that we have forgotten the true shape of a free market. Instead, we blame the failure of corporatist practices on the free market, and sacrifice even more freedom in the process.
dan
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