Consumer complaint received 2015-09-09
Product: Student loan — Non-federal student loan
Issue: Can't repay my loan — Can't get flexible payment options
Company: Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority (MA)

XX/XX/XXXX, I graduated from XXXX. Unknown to me, I was graduating with XXXX loans, all approximately $ XXXX, that were in default. I knew that I had cosigned with my mother on these loans, but had no real idea that she was behind on the payments, or just how behind she actually was. During this time, I was also trying to pack up my life 's belongings and move to a small dingy apartment in XXXX, where we would now be living. My mother, whose health and financial stability had declined, was forced to foreclose on her home, another sign of just how bad it everything had gotten. And something I have never been able to live down. I carry a lot of blame and resentment for going to college for 4 years, and feel guilty that my mom ended up losing her house to put me through school. 

I began working with the lender to see what my options were, and soon discovered that I was unable to come up with any type of agreement with MEFA, or at the time, XXXX, while the payments continued to fall behind. A number of times I tried contacting them to come up with a repayment plan, and they just told me that because they were private loans there was nothing I could do until I was able to get the past due balance caught up. I called a number of different lenders and student loan companies to see about consolidation, but there was nothing. It appeared that was no real recourse for combining or lowering these private student loans. I spent the summer after graduation trying to resolve this enormous debt with little to no help or answers. I searched for a new full-time job, something that could help me pay this debt and other expenses that I had acquired. This was just around the time the market crashed. From XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX I found myself at XXXX different jobs. One job that forced me to have a credit card for travel, which I did not qualify for on my own, given my loans and credit score, and one that I had been laid off from, after only being an employee for 6 months. I was laid off from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX, when I finally was hired by XXXX. 

In XX/XX/XXXX my mother received a summons from XXXX in order for her to settle on a repayment agreement for the private loans from MEFA. After acquiring a lawyer through a generous donation from my XXXX, we were able to reach an agreement of {$500.00} a month. In the heat of the moment and feeling like this was our only solution, my mother signed the documents and we came up with a repayment plan. Externally, I agreed to give her a portion of the money toward these monthly payments, as I was the one who had received the education. However, there were no clear terms and no real end date established, along with an absurd and unrealistic interest rate. As far as I know, we also have not received any monthly statements or any tax form documents since that time. 

Presently we are on a repayment plan trying to pay back {$66000.00} of the loans that was agreed upon, but it is supposed to be over a period of 7 years and the payments go up quite a bit each year, even though I am not guaranteed a raise of that much. Last year my raise was {$400.00} annually. We are being completely crippled by these loans, and the damage it has done to our credit is preventing us from moving forward with out lives or getting any type of credit approval.