Consumer complaint received 2019-03-04
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Problem lowering your monthly payments
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (NY)

Hello. My story is sad but true. It's like millions of others, I'm sure but still no less sad because it is my own issue. My own life 's issue. I am an XXXX and I pursued my dream of being an XXXX  when I went to college, XXXX University, and then was accepted into the prestigious XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX   Graduate XXXX Program at XXXX. It was a great program and one where students were afforded many professional opportunities that many XXXX who hadn't gone to school didn't receive. I had received {$40000.00} in scholarship money to attend XXXX and I borrowed another {$40000.00} to pay for living expenses and the tuition difference for the next three years. In addition to the {$10000.00} I had taken out for XXXX study from XXXX, in XXXX I was {$50000.00} in debt with principal at 8.25 % interest. I also had taken out a Perkins loan for {$2500.00} that I had paid off within five years of graduation. After graduating XXXX, I worked in theater steadily for the next three years. My salary at $ XXXX week wasn't tremendous but I was a working XXXX! After the 6 month grace period however my loan servicer, then Sallie Mae, told me I would owe $ XXXXmonth on top of my rent and bills but if that would be a problem they said I could defer payments for upto 2 years or I could " forbear '' payments, essentially stopping payments, basically so I would not have to worry about payments. As the years went by I had to keep forbearing or deferring payments. My loans were bought and sold as so much trash by XXXX, Navient, Sallie Mae, and finally Navient again. I'm sure there were other servicers who bought the loans but I can not rememember all of them. They seemed to change each or every other year. I would constantly ask for statements at the end of the deferrment period to see how much interest was 'capitalized ' to the principal but most of the servicer 's employees were from XXXX and either they didn't understand what I meant when I said, " Please send me a paper statement when the loan is about to start repayment so I can see how much interest has accrued '' or they just disregarded it as unimportant. It was probably the latter as I'm sure many of us asked for statements but because the loans had switched hands so much the servicers only needed to get permission to defer or forbear payments and then forget about the rest of the service call. Their bank was getting what they wanted. People whose initial principal wasn't enormous, although owing {$50000.00} is pretty enormous would see the balance balloon to enormous sums because we weren't being kept aware of how the principal kept growing. The agents were always so understanding and supportive on the call about giving out more deferment or forbearance time because we needed help. Outside of paying my rent on a New York rent stabilized apt , borrowing for school has been my only borrowing experience. Fast forward to some years later when I was in a long running play, or on tour and I would have a modest steady income and I would try and knock off some of the principal but the interest alone now was over {$1000.00} so I asked about repayment options. I was put on income sensitive plans or income contingent plans and had some years where I was able to pay some of the loan 's interest back but unfortunately those plan were not the 'right income sensitive ' plan to qualify for payments towards loan forgiveness. Once again, misleading information that is only found out years later when the issue is too big now to be ignored and I'm trying to figure out a way out of this mess. As it stands right now I have about two, maybe three years towards loan forgiveness. My principal is now {$90000.00}! I am in the " REPAYE '' plan which I need to reapply for each year. This year my payment was $ XXXX month based on my expenses and income from the previous year however I'm still not paying anything toward taking down the principal so the interest gets added to the amount and the amount keeps growing. I'm XXXX years old. Still an XXXX. I make around XXXX/year between XXXX work, side gigs like XXXX, and unemployment but it changes every year and I don't receive a weekly check like a banker. I get paid for something then I have to stretch that money out to pay health insurance/medical costs, union dues, not to mention rent, bills and the occasional piece of pizza. I live in XXXX which is very expensive. I have under {$10000.00} in retirement savings and with streaming media taking away a lot of union work XXXX in commercials things have been getting worse and worse in the last 5 years. Producers and ad agencies don't care about XXXX. There aren't government regs to restrict this from happening and our union is virtually a non factor in protecting our livliehood. I yearn for a night when I can sleep through without waking up in an anxious sweat. I have this {$90000.00} debt hanging over my head with no real possibility to pay it off in my lifetime. I'm wondering how I could have let this happen but more importantly, I'm wondering why there aren't any regulations in place to protect borrowers from this sort of practice. The 'ever polite and supportive bank who says, " You can have another forbearance, no problem ''. Additionally, had I been told about the " proper '' repayment plan to be on years ago, I would have a few more years invested in the loan forgiveness program and I would not be staring down this dark tunnel. Had their practices been less predatory in a 'folksy kind of way ' but instead 'transparent in an honest way ', I would not be 25 years out of graduate school looking at double the amount I borrowed with not very good prospects to pay it all off.