Consumer complaint received 2016-08-09
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: CA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Can't repay my loan
Sub-issue: Can't decrease my monthly payments

Complaint:
Apparently the settlement resulting from their XX/XX/XXXX A lawsuit was n't enough for XXXX XXXX ( formerly known as XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ). Although the school was forced to pay out approximately {>= $1,000,000} in settlement for complaints leading all the way back to XX/XX/XXXX, it apparently did n't have any impact on XXXX. More recent lawsuits have been filed against XXXX XXXX as well as against lender Sallie Mae by former students who claim that hidden fees suddenly appeared on their loans after their terms changed without their agreement. One such former student stated he found that his already ridiculous loan totally XX/XX/XXXX had ballooned to over {$220000.00} when it defaulted and he became aware of the hidden terms and their changes in addition to unreasonable debt collection fees by collectors. 

Students were led to believe that they were pretty well guaranteed jobs upon graduation and students could expect to earn between $ XXXX-XXXX per year. Considering the median salary for waged photographers is more like {$25000.00} per year and that XXXX has a XXXX dropout rate, this was proven to be highly unlikely a result for graduates. XXXX also requires that students begin paying back their loans for tuition within 6 months of walking in the door. This means students going to school full time have to come up with loan payments on tuition of {$25000.00} per year while still attending and is contrary to the industry standard. Most schools defer loan payments until students have graduated and are out of the program for 6 months. While some individuals state this is in the fine print somewhere, for low-income students, many of which are the first in their family to attend university, the fine print was missed if it did exist. 

Investigators discovered that contrary to what XXXX was stating about their job placement and salary expectations, not one graduate from the program was even earning {$50000.00} per year, let alone anything beyond the lower amount. XXXX jobs paying those substantial figures involve additional skills like journalism or communications, business savvy, and connections to get. 

With XXXX XXXX signing up hundreds of XXXX students per year in a job market that does n't require that many placements, how on earth did they expect all these students to find jobs. Many graduating students found that the XXXX jobs they could get were the generic type at XXXX or XXXX XXXX centers, earned not much beyond minimum wage, and did n't require a degree in XXXX. Flooding the field with hundreds of graduates per year was unlikely to improve those job prospects any ... if the students managed to graduate that is. 

This school remains open and offers the identical classes, still has seriously overpriced tuition, and XXXX % or higher job placement success rates. Tuition for similar programs at community colleges and universities is generally less than half the price than this bloated school and its promises.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation