Consumer complaint received 2021-02-07
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Problem lowering your monthly payments
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (NY)

I received my XXXX degree 1998 from XXXX XXXX, funded in full by student loans. Unfortunately, my degree didn't quite prepare me for a future XXXX XXXX XXXX, and I had to take some additional coursework in order to enroll in the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXere in XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, again adding to my growing student loan balance. Upon enrolling at XXXX, I was advised that I'd be eligible to apply for Teacher Loan Forgiveness after 5 years of teaching as a Special XXXX in the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I am sure you can only imagine my disappointment when I received a notification from Sallie Mae that my application was denied due to the type of loans I had, and the date they were taken. When I received the rejection letter I reached out to Sallie Mae and the Dept of Education and both failed to give any guidance on how to best handle the situation or to help get me on the right payment plan. No one ever suggested that I consolidate my loans into federal loans, and no one explained the type of loans. In fact the Dept of Ed suggested I might qualify for Public Loan Forgiveness which I now know that the type of loans I hold, would have also made me illegible. 

To add insult to injury I was laid off by the XXXX on two separate occasions. Feeling disenfranchised by the lay-off 's and the loan forgiveness rejection, on top of having two small kids that required me to have stable employment, I left the field. My loans have remained in deferment, accruing more and more interest. The minimum payments have not been affordable and my student loan balance is now greater than our mortgage balance. At this rate, these loans will likely outlive me. I have reached out to Navient who now services my loans on multiple occasions for help with my payment and have received virtually no support. It was only when I reached out to find out why my loans weren't receiving the CARES program benefit of 0 interest that I was told my loan type was not eligible and that I would have to apply for a direct consolidation first ( now adding more interest to the loan ). 

Out of desperation I reached out to the executive team at Navient explaining my situation in hopes that they might work with me to restructure these loans so that I can begin to pay them off and they did nothing. I also filed a complaint with the office of the Ombudsman but that was closed, only referring me back to Navient. I also emailed XXXX and have not heard back. In addition, I filled out the application for Borrower Defense as I feel I was really misled about the type of loans I have, misled about the promise of loan forgiveness, and about my career potential in the field. Given the dates I received both degrees, I think that I am outside the statute of limitations here. Most recently I discovered that XXXX XXXX  owns my loans and I reached out to them to see if they could offer any help in restructuring these loans to help with the accrued interest, given my circumstances. While I understand I took out these loans, I had no say in who owned them. I am really at a loss as to what to do here. Any help would be appreciated.