E11 - Borrower Defense for Student Loans

A brief explanation about using the Borrower Defense application if you believe your school either misled you or coerced you into taking out a student loan.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

The best thing, but you can give them to the, Your love, gimme such a thrill, but your love don't pay my bills. I need

Speaker 2: 0:55

That's that's

Speaker 3: 1:09

Hey everybody. This is Jerry, and welcome to the pink money podcast, where we talk about all things about related to money from a gay perspective. And today what I'm gonna talk to you about is student loans, but from the angle of, you know, those of you who may have been either misled or defrauded, um, to take out a student loans by predatory institution and you're left withholding a great deal of debt and a basically worthless degree. So, you know, a lot of times when you're young and you're thinking about going to school and you're trying to get out on you're, you know, go out and stand down your own two feet, you can, you know, be taken advantage of very, very easily because you don't really have the experience and the background to really understand a lot of things that come at you really quick, especially when you're talking about handling large sums of money. And when you're thinking about going to school, they start throwing a lot of numbers out. You telling you how much, you know, it's ultimately ultimately going to cost you and what the interest rate is and what the repayment plan is. It, I don't think really, really sinks in because you don't really have the, again, the, you know, the understanding of how long it really takes to pay a hundred thousand dollars back, or really what, what is a hundred thousand dollars in the big sense? You know, it's, it's a large number, but what does it mean when you have to really repay that? And are you gonna be able to, and maybe you're, you know, living, uh, a life that you're thinking, well, you know, I should be able to handle a, a monthly payment of, you know, five,$600. I should be making pretty good money by then. No, no, no, you probably won't be. And there's no way you're gonna be able to probably repay that for years and years, if ever, you know, I think about a situation where a friend of mine wanted to go to culinary school. So I went with him and we started touring the institution and the person leading us around was showing us all the great things about it. And, you know, I asked her, I said, well, how much is the program? And she said, well, you know, including all the food and everything that you have to, you know, use throughout the program, you're looking at a two year cost of around 50,000. Wow. I just, my eyes about, you know, fell outta my head. I just couldn't believe that$50,000 to attend a two year program. That to me was a lot, a lot of money for something like, like that. I mean, you could go to community college and, you know, take a culinary course for probably 300 bucks. And even if you had to buy your own food and bring it, you know, you weren't gonna be paying$50,000 back after two years. And then she had mentioned that they have a bachelor's degree, that's a three year program, and that would only cost you$80,000. I'm like what?$80,000 for a three year degree. And I asked her, I said, well, when people graduate with this, how much are they actually earning once they finish this program? And I remember that the woman literally hung her chin head down. Her chin almost touched her chest. And she said less than$30,000 a year, I thought you should be ashamed because then that is outrageous that people are being charged that amount of money and, you know, well, they, they are not gonna be making the kind of money to repay that kind of a alone. And that is criminal to take advantage of people like that. You know, I had something else. I was gonna be talking about this week. And, um, I was gonna talk about really defined contribution versus defined benefit plans. And I will do that, but you know, I've seen some tos recently and I've been reading a lot and a lot about student loans and, um, trying to get them canceled and maybe, you know, president Biden in Congress, you know, might be able to get together and cancel a lot of student debt for a lot of people. And I, I really hope all that happens, but, you know, I've been hearing a lot of horror stories again about people saddled with the tremendous amount debt and they just really have no earthly way. They're gonna be able to repay it. And if it's, you know, the type of loan that you might be in default with, meaning you haven't been making your payments, then you know, when they start, you know, come knocking on your door and trying to collect that is just scary, right? Because you don't know what's ultimately gonna happen and wonder if they do ultimately win a judgment against you because you are in default and they start garnishing your paychecks, then you really have nothing to live on. And again, I just find that is unconscionable. And I don't think that should happen to anybody. So with all that being said, you know, I think that a little known program does exist out there. And I would encourage a lot of people to take advantage of it. And it's through the federal government and it's a borrower defense. And what that means, if you got involved with an institution, maybe you took out a private loan, you know, versus a government back loan. And you, you know, took it out to, let's just say, go to culinary school for$80,000. And you realize now after the fact that, you know, again, you're never gonna be able to pay off, then you probably were taken advantage of, right. They probably either misled you or encouraged you to go into a program and to take out that kind of loan when you really shouldn't have. And again, without the proper background, knowledge and education and advice, you may have just willingly done it and you shouldn't have, so a borrower defense means that you're saying all that happened to me and I believe this is a worthless degree and the Sloan should be canceled. And that's how you need to get out from under it, because you won't any other way. Now, maybe, you know, Biden in Congress. Like I said, they might come up with some plan to cancel 10,000. Maybe they'll even do 2030, but if you're hovering around the$80,000 mark or more, then this would probably be your best bet. Now what it really just entails. You can go to, um, uh, predatory, uh, student lending.org, or you can go to the federal government's website, uh, and you can fill out this form. It's pretty straightforward and simple. And the reason you just want to put is all those things that happened to you and you know exactly what happened. You were there, you know, you know, more about it than anybody else. So you just want to be crystal clear on what happened to you and just explain, you know, know your whole entire situation. And if you have any kind of documentation, then you, uh, definitely want to, you know, submit that, you know, as well because the institutions are, you know, the government's gonna be looking at these applications and hopefully making a Jesu based in your favor, but they need as much information from you as possible. And that's what you wanna provide them. Um, I'm gonna provide a link on my, uh, website pink money, online.com, um, so that you can get to the application and you can also go to federal student a.gov and get it off there. Or like I said, predatory student lending.org. There's some great information on, uh, this and this organization really seems like they're fighting for, you know, the borrowers who really need the help that they wouldn't be able to get otherwise. So if you're hearing this and I'm hoping that you are and are able to spread the word about this borrower defense application that people need to complete, and if it's not you again, and maybe you do know somebody who's facing this situation and just needs the information, you can help guide them. And the more people that do this, hopefully the more often that the will be the case and more people will get out from underneath this crushing debt. And I would hope that everybody would, would be able to pretty much, you know, just get a fresh start, cuz I think that's what really is needed these days. There's so much, you know, that it's going on out there and housing alone is just, you know, outrageously expensive days. And the last thing you need is, you know, to be choked with this kind of student loan debt. And that's just my opinion. So anyway, um, that was the whole crux of this podcast. You know, this episode today, because I really have, like I said, heard a lot of horror stories and I don't want you to be in that situation, necess Sara and not know where to turn and believe me. I've had friends that have had, you know, the, their financial world turned up upside down and they don't know where to turn and they've made the ultimate bad decision and taken their life. And if you are remotely thinking about something like that at again, go to pink money, online.com and you know, call suicide prevention or the Trevor project and reach out to somebody and please speak to someone because this is not the end of the road for you. And it may feel completely overwhelming to you. And every day you think about, and you're worried about, and you can't get any sleep, you need to find some relief. And, and this is just certainly nothing that you need to take, you know, the ultimate, uh, step and, you know, harm yourself because it's not, this is not the end of the world. There's much, much more that you, you know, you are capable of doing and going to do. And this is just a little hiccup in the road. So get the right help, get the advice you need. Uh, if you need reach out to me, please feel comfortable doing that. I'm at Jerry at pink money, online.com and you know, check out those links and do something good for yourself and somebody else. So that's pretty much it for me today, short and sweet, but I think really necessary. So hopefully this was helpful to you and I will be talking with you next time.

Speaker 2: 12:50

So you.