Consumer complaint received 2024-05-07
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Getting a loan — High pressure sales tactics or recruiting
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (CA)

I was recently notified of the discharge of my federal loans related to XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX ( attached ), based on findings of gross school misconduct ( attached ), however, the approval seemingly does not cover private loans for the same school and period or make whole the funds paid to the private servicer Navient ( attached ). 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX and all XXXX  schools are now permanently closed as part of XXXX XXXX ongoing litany of accreditation issues and lawsuits, XXXX 's predatory practices and exploitive partnerships with Sallie Mae / Navient and to whom I made all payments from XXXX. The impacts still reverberate and haunt me and my family to this day. My mom XXXX, has delayed retirement for fear of late-life financial harms being that she is the co-signer on ALL of the private loans and has been the payer on as many as were possible over the last 15 years. She carries immense guilt for her trusting the recruiters when we sat down with them in fall XXXX. Their misconducts were known publicly as early as XXXX ( one year after going into repayment ) when uncovered as a result of exhaustive investigations, depositions, and lawsuits and findingd presented in United States Senate HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE For Profit Higher Education : The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success in XXXX of XXXX. We have to date paid upwards of {$110000.00} on loans that were originally half, if that in the neighborhood of $ XXXX, at the time of borrowing - you can find the payments attached, downloaded directly from Navient 's site on the life of the loans to affirm this fact and .xls spreadsheets that provide greater detail, but XXXX  clarity on the silent killer that is the *capitalized* interest. I have thrown huge sums and even windfalls that would have been circumstance changing at these debts over the years- $ XXXX, $ XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX and XXXX payments where I could to chop at the interest accruing balance. It's all there in the records attached. 

Evidence of all of these acts can be be found in the Senate Committee On Health Education and Labor report on higher education, in the Testimony of XXXX XXXX XXXX. Truly, in reading this report - I was first shocked, then saddened, then angered - because of the time lost, the mental, emotional, and most harmful - financial cost. Worst even, that cost did not just fall on me. As youth hoping to outrun college completion statistics, my family was completely invested in providing the only manner of support they could, which was not liquid cash but more XXXX-pushed loans. 3 generations of my family have poured into XXXX XXXXNavient/Sallie Mae . My grand parents ( grandfather a Korean War veteran and in his latter years a tailor at XXXX XXXX, my grandmother a XXXX XXXX XXXX ), my mother- a XXXX XXXX  who at the time wholly believed in the virtues of higher education and the implied integrity of school staff and officials, and myself- XXXX at the time informed but unaware of the coy and explicit ways in which I was being manipulated into a financial yoke that would haunt me year, after year, after year, after year to follow. That school is now shuttered as listed on their closed school information page - as it should be- though it has taken harm to many people for that to happen. XXXX XXXX XXXX  Much of this was brought to bear primarily due to misrepresentation of cost and transferability of credits and later exacerbated by predatory lending, mismanagement of my account loan accounts, and self-serving allocations of payments made by Sallie Mae and Navient XXXX My original intention when I met with XXXX admissions recruiters in Fall of XXXX was that I would attend my first year or so as a cost-saving measure until I could transfer to my primary choice to which I was accepted w/o financial aid - XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - where my family is from and most resided at the time- but have incurred out of state tuition fees I couldn't afford due to having applied from XXXX  The recruiter harped repeatedly on their lack of out-of-state costs and the savings available and provided many assurances of transferability of credits both into and out of the institution, which I later uncovered to be an outright lie. She made no mention of the ongoing accreditation issues XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX was facing that would make transfer prohibitive if not remedied. This misrepresentation ultimately resulted in an inability to continue due to mounting costs and inability to transfer ( which would have saved me and my family money after establishing 1 year of residency ). Meaning I would have to stay, pay, and attempt to finish despite cost at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX -- XXXX. It eventually became unsustainable. Once into repayment I was constantly hounded despite the school not making good on its job placement promises and artificially inflated placement numbers. Sallie Mae and Navient representatives called me and my mom, and grandparents tirelessly but failed to provide proper information on my options, leading to non-beneficial amounts being paid by all of us, and at other times when it couldn't be paid, putting me and the loans into extremely costly forbearances that I would later learn had capitalized into principle. Insuring more cost and higher interest. Navient is named as an active and willing participant in practices that were found to be profoundly unethical and predatory and their harm was docuemnted in the Navient AG Multi-State Settlement. 


BELOW ARE A LIST OF DETAILED INTERACTIONS WITH AI AND THE ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF ART BY PREDATORY TACTIC : Pressured were aggressive and deceptive- recruiter pressured and played on my feelings of failure and stagnation that I had revealed during my initial sit-down- I was consistently pressured to apply for financial aid but never informed that I could decline the acceptance of the awarded aid Misrepresented - cost, employability, completion and job placements- They reiterated these talking points time and again ; first in our sit down chat in the ai admin offices, then again in their printed promotional materials, and again online and in subsequent phone and email communications- Substantially misrepresented true cost ( that while the first year would indeed be slightly less expensive than my other option, tuition would stay the same and even increase in subsequent years, making it categorically far more expensive than my other option ) but they touted post grad job placement which my other option did not - They aggressively pushed federal student loans as an option when I was hesitant and then played on my moms concerns, pushing her into parent plus loans with cost and interest that in her then state of employment were far beyond her means. 
- I was very clear that though I had read the disorganized array of loan materials they shared, I wasnt all the way clear on implications and very earnestly stated I was reliant on their expertise and their stated care for student outcomes - When I said I wanted to circle back so that I could talk with my mom or other trusted sources who had taken loans themselves, I was discouraged and roped into longer and guilty-laden conversation - They also assured me that previous credits earned at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX would transfer, which I also reasonably expected because they were basic first year general studies courses- they did not. And of course this incurred more cost- Beyond that the recruiters and student counselors routinely made substantially misleading statements to me with regard to transferability of credits post AI. Since I made it clear that I wanted to attend for my first possibly second year, then transfer to my school of choice. 
- However, after some time and research as that date neared, I found that my credits did not indeed transfer to XXXX and that I had to either lose my credits earned in the prior 18 mos or stay and complete my education at XXXX. The counselor at the time harped heavily on guilt and fear of failure - reminding me of the time I had already lost in my previous transfer from out of state. In hindsight, I felt this was coercive and deliberate to keep me enrolled as evidenced in the attached affidavit and Senate committee report.

- I stayed, however, this resulted in my first of many depressive episodes that precipitated a steep decline in my grades, a sense of hopelessness and loss that at 20 was indescribable and masked by heightened emotions and youth. 
- They also misrepresented data on their post graduation successful placement rate stating it was very high, where later litigation in fact shows total knowledge of these falsehoods and well as encouragement by managers to obfuscate the true numbers in favor of increasing enrollment in a sales type manor. More concerned with admission and enrollment than educational outcome- The school operated both a gallery and a restaurant called XXXX XXXX ( later changed to XXXX )- where they employed programmed students and counted them in their placements and employment stats ( page 4 of the attached doc ) Omitted - true statistics on student rates of completion, as well as, true cost ( that while the first year would indeed be slightly less expensive than my other option, tuition would stay the same and even increase in subsequent years, making it categorically far more expensive than my other option ) but they touted post grad job placement which my other option did not There was never any mention of potential or ongoing accreditation issues at that campus or any of its sister campus and institutions this would have immediately raised a red flag - When XX/XX/XXXX - How it impacted my decision to attend and take out financial aid - The detriment I suffered is that I never completed my education - having to withdraw due to cost and poor performance related to having to work so much to supplement cost and it haunts me to this day, impacts my confidence because Im plagued by XXXX XXXX  I took a series of whatever I could get jobs, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I quit without safetynet or options. Each taking me further from completing my education and reaching my professional goals.