Consumer complaint received 2015-04-02
Company: HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY (HESAA)
State: NJ
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Non-federal student loan
Issue: Can't repay my loan
Sub-issue: Can't decrease my monthly payments

Complaint:
I went to school at XXXX XXXX XXXX. At the young age of XXXX I really did not know what taking out a loan would mean for me nor had I ever dealt with any kind of debt before. There was no education given to me about what the consequences would be taking out a loan this large and I had no idea what would await for me once I graduated. I did not think much of it and the entire time I was attending college I thought I would just be using my degree I paid all this money for to get a good job that paid well and easily pay back the loans in time. After graduation I soon realized that this mentality was completely incorrect. This is when I began receiving bills from NJCLASS for close to $ XXXX/month on top of the federal loan I had to pay back which about another $ XXXX/month. This was very unsettling and there was no way for me to pay this kind of money straight out of college. It was not easy to find a job after graduating and it probably took me about 1-1.5 years to even find a salary position. During this time I had tried deferring the payments until I had more income and after I could no longer defer it I was just sending as much in my payments as I could given what I was making. How is a young adult supposed to survive on their own under these conditions? I was having difficulty just paying the loans back, forget about me having enough money to buy a car, rent/buy a place to live, start a family, etc. Then just as I was about to have enough money to make these outrageous monthly payments in full I come home to find out that my XXXX loans had defaulted and were sent to a collection agency without much warning at all. It would have been nice if they warned me that my loans were about to be sent to a lawyer 's office that would be tacking on even more money and making my payments even higher allowing for no form of consolidation or rehabilitation. This is when things really got ugly and worry and stress completely consumed my life. I had no idea what dealing with a collection agency meant for me as they mentioned that they could sue me. I started to panic and wound up seeking out a lawyer to talk to about what my options were.I found out that there was no way to rehabilitate. I do not see why the loan could not have been rehabilitated after making consecutive on time full monthly payments. The collection agency had also tacked on about an additional $ XXXX in legal fees to the total amount I owed for my XXXX loans which just seems criminal. They also said I would need to pay them $ XXXX/month now. I could n't believe what was happening to me, if I was already having trouble paying how would making me pay all this extra money help? My lawyer I was seeing told me I either had to agree to pay them the $ XXXX/month or if I could not come up with that I would have to file bankruptcy. I spent awhile mulling over if bankruptcy was the right choice for me because I was unsure how I would come up with that much money. I became so stressed out over this as I could not believe a XXXX year old had to consider bankruptcy because he chose to go to college. I kept just thinking how did my life come to this? I eventually decided I would not file bankruptcy because I did not know how that would affect the rest of my life going forward and I chose to live with my parents and basically have my entire paycheck go to this payment. This made things really hard for me because I did not have money for anything else and the stress and anxiety continued to pile up. I tried many times to work with the collection agency to see if they could lower the payments or work out an alternative payment plan but they would not budge. I am now XXXX and I am still forced to live with my parents and unable to move forward with my life. How can no rehabilitation program be offered? I can not move forward with my life in this situation.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation