Consumer complaint received 2020-03-27
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (IN)

I attended XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX. Some of the things that attracted me to the school were small class sizes, instructors were professionals in the field of study, .career services said they had 100 % job placement upon reaching graduation, the flexibility of the courses so that i could work in the area while attending the school, and being close to home so that i could commute. 

My parents and I met with the school officials prior to the start of courses in XXXX to discuss FASFA and student loans in general such as XXXX XXXX and XXXX, etc. We signed up for Parent plus Loan and had cosigner on the loans. The total cost for a XXXX 's program was approximately {$80000.00}. 

At the start of XXXX and mid way through the year. we had to meet with school officials and financial advisers and they said that they no longer could get Federal student aid such as Parent Plus loan. They said the only way i could continue to attend college courses was to pay the remaining balance of school or take out private loans with higher interest rates. The Financial Advisers changed so  often that we didn't even know who to talk to at that point. 

I felt like i was forced to take an expensive private loan through Sallie Mae XXXX Navient XXXX just to complete my course otherwise i would have no means to finish what i had started and be a complete waste of time, money, and effort spent. 

As far as career services goes, this was a complete joke. They had promised for assistance and were selling people on 100 % job placement. I had met with them many times throughout the courses i was taken looking for entry level positions or internships. The only thing they did was print off packets of jobs that were already on XXXX  or XXXX XXXX. or they would have part time work through staffing agencies for XXXX XXXX, etc. 

The instructors at the school were not qualified to teach. There were some good teachers along the way, but some classes, the instructors would walk out in the middle of the course, they would teach things completely unrelated to the course syllabus to waste time. They would give exceptional grades for mediocre work so that the students would have a high pass rate and ultimately help with funding. 

Upon completion of the course and the so called separation period, i started to receive calls from all the lenders wanting the repayment to the point of harassment with myself and my cosigner. i had set up the deferment option as i had not yet found work pertaining to my degree. My loan providers switched several times and trying to keep all the payments and information was extremely difficult. I looked at Direct Loans Consolidation through Dept of Education, it transferred to XXXX, then Navient was the handler of my private loans. 

I had finally found a position for my degree but all the loans were already accruing a ton of interest at 10+ %. This caused me to be way behind and ballooned my payments to the point i would have to choose to buy basic necessities such as food, rent, gas, etc, or make more that XXXX $ month payments combined on said loans. I talked to them MANY times to try and set up income based repayment, interest only payments, forbearance. deferment, basically every option that was available to help. 

It then got to the point that my options had run out, and they could no longer offer the assistance as stated above. Now they wanted to collect even a higher payment on top of what was already asking because the interest still accrued while the " assistance programs '' were in effect. This started a bad string of missing payments or being way behind which was affecting my credit scores. my credit went so low that i could not obtain any personal loans to try and pay off the higher interest school loans that i felt were predatory. I also could not consolidate any more. Ultimately, this forced me into missing other payments to try and bounce back and forth between school loans and those payments, and i had to look at filing bankruptcy. 

After bankruptcy for all of my other items such as car and house, this still did not help me with the student loan crisis because it is not included in the filing. It started me back at square one where i could not even obtain a high interest credit card to assist or offset some of my payments due to my credit being destroyed. It caused many years of struggling to provide for my family because it stemmed all the way back to the decision of attending XXXX XXXX and the fraudulent and predatory practices that they steered me in to that direction. Now, over 10 years later, making payments on Federal and private loans, and my balance is still as high as when i first started because the interest accruing. If i knew about XXXX XXXX 's shady and dirty practices prior to attending, i would have NEVER in my life would have agreed to go there and now it is a decision i have regretted ever since. I was young and naive and now realized i was completely taken advantage to the point of destroying the next 10 or more years of my life. 

Now, the school has since closed down due to the fraudulent and deceiving practices and are involved in several lawsuits that are exactly the same as what had occurred to myself back in XXXX. The only option i felt i had was to either quit school and eat almost 2 years of schooling, or to take the high interest private loans. The credits that i had accumulated would not transfer anywhere at the time and i would have had to start completely over along with paying back the first 2 years at more than {$40000.00}.