Consumer complaint received 2017-09-07 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
I began attending XXXX XXXX University in XX/XX/XXXX. Although I was provided with the total cost of tuition before I started school, I was informed that I could not take one loan to cover total tuition cost, and instead would be required to take multiple loans. The school also failed to inform myself and other students the accelerated degree program causes students such as myself to miss out on Pell grants and other federal aid programs. XXXX XXXX 's XXXX 's program runs on an accelerated 21-month schedule, as opposed to a standard 4-year degree program, which causes students to miss out on a potential 2 years or more of federal aid. When recruiting new students, XXXX XXXX  recruiters extol the benefits of the accelerated, but do not disclose the drawbacks ( I myself did n't even realize this until recently ). After the federal aid is used, the financial aid department then strongly pushes students to the private loan option, going so far as to put students in direct touch with XXXX XXXX agents. The first private loan I took out in XX/XX/XXXX was provided at a rate of 3.5 %, and while receiving no guarantees in writing, I was reassured by XXXX XXXX employees and my financial aid department that other loans would be at a similar rate based on my credit score. As I progressed through my degree, further loans were required, and although I was making active payments on rent and an auto loan, and had no other detriments to my credit aside from the student loans, my rates immediately began to rise to 8 % or higher. By the team I was near the end of the program, the only loan they would approve me for was at a 15.25 % interest rate with payments starting immediately, rather than after I graduated. If I chose not to take the loan, I would have been discharged from the school with no degree, and any loans I took previously would immediately go into repayment, even though I would n't have the degree needed to get the type of job that would pay me enough to pay the loans back. With no other choice, and unable to convince any other lenders to work with me, I took the loan and completed my degree program, graduating with a XXXX 's of Computer Science in XX/XX/XXXX.
After graduating, the first job I was able to find was at a call center making $ XXXX/hour. My minimum monthly loan payments were set at roughly $ XXXX/month. I made my best efforts to pay as much of that as I could, but any time I called in to XXXX XXXX to ask about any consolidation, relief programs, or income-based repayments, I was informed that my only option was forbearance, which would bring my account to current. It was offered as a way to protect my credit by preventing partial late payments from being reported on my credit. I later found out that when XXXX XXXX  applied forbearance, it immediately compounded all current interest into the principal. I also learned that forbearance is something you can only use a limited number of times, so once I had exercised it all, I was back to where I started with much higher principals. I was eventually able to consolidate my federal loans, and have remained current on those payments, but to this day I am completely unable to consolidate the loans, and the reason provided is the loans themselves. After XXXX XXXX became Navient, I was finally able to get into a deferred interest program, which set the interest rates on all of the private loans to 1 % and, for the second year I was on the program, to 2 %. I did not miss a single payment for the two years that I was on the program. Navient failed to disclose to me multiple things about this program, including the following : payments made while on the program did not count toward the required 3 years of consistent payments to apply to remove cosigners ; payments made while on the program only applied to the interest accruing at the 1 % rate, no part of the payments were applied to any loan principals ; the original terms of the loans, which were supposed to be 10 year repayment plans, were suddenly extended to XX/XX/XXXX( I did n't know this until after the program finished and I was digging through the loan records on Navient 's site ). When the program ended I re-applied to be in it, as it was about to change my monthly payments from roughly $ XXXX/month to roughly $ XXXX/month, and was informed after completing a financial statement that I would not be accepted into the program again, since ( paraphrasing ) " it was likely that I would be unable to make the monthly payments, and thus it would n't make sense to put me into the program again. '' I disagreed, citing the basic logic that if you anticipated me having trouble making a payment, why would the solution be to make my payment even higher, but they seemed to disagree with the point. By that time I was working as a XXXX XXXX for a XXXX XXXX in XXXX, making a decent salary and seemingly capped out on a credit score of XXXX. Despite all the positive factors on my credit, the amount of available credit and the debt-to-income ratio seem to be keeping my score at a maximum of XXXX. This immediately disqualifies me from most consolidation services, which seem to require a minimum of XXXX, as well as preventing me from being able to invest in a home or retirement. On my private loans, as of last month, my original principal of private loans {$86000.00}, with an estimated repayment date of XX/XX/XXXX. Since XX/XX/XXXX I have paid over {$35000.00}, my current principal of those private loans is roughly {$99000.00}, and my estimated repayment date is XX/XX/XXXX. I have taken this information to a variety of banks and financial institutions, and have been told every time that there is nothing they can do for me. Hopefully you can help me in some way, I want to pay back what I borrowed, I want to be responsible for my finances, I want to be able to invest in a house and retirement and my kids ' education, but as it currently stands, I do n't know how this does n't keep spiraling larger and larger until my finances are completely destroyed. My income has grown by nearly 400 % since XX/XX/XXXXand the situation still is n't getting better, my debt is growing at a rate that I can not beat. I do n't want to be a revenue stream for Navient for the rest of my life, please help.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation