Student Loans

 As many of you know, we were supposed to receive student loan forgiveness but didn’t. There was a 3 year pause on payments and interest accrual due to the pandemic. In the spring of 2020 when that began, I checked my balance and it was at $20,146. So I paid $146 and whatever change in order to make the balance an even $20K. 

Biden’s plan was to grant $10K in forgiveness to everyone and $20K to Pell recipients. I was a Pell recipient since I was a single mom at the time I went back to school. So I would have gotten just enough to pay off my loans. 

With the forgiveness not happening, and the interest accruing again starting in September, I submitted my income information to the new loan servicer and check it whenever I feel like I have a surplus in my checking account. Then I make a small payment that brings the balance down about $10 less than I brought it down to last time I did this. This is to prevent the interest from ballooning up to about $100K by the time I retire. I keep a note on my phone keeping Track of how much I’m paying on what day and what that brings the total down to. When I log on, it always says I have $0 due, even though they never sent me any statement saying what I owe monthly based on my income. Maybe it’s zero who knows?  But if I let it go, I will be in trouble. I’m posting this just to help expose how predatory these loans are. Since September 1, I paid about $320 to bring the balance down by $130. Interest accrus daily  

$21.10 payment made 9/5/23 bringing balance to $19,990

9/14/23 payment of $34.97 bringing balance to $19,980 

$31.10 payment on 9/18/23 bringing balance to $19,960

9/20/23 $25.56 payment bringing balance to $19,940 

$23.84 paid on 9/25 bringing balance to $19,930 

10/13/23 paid $59.77 bringing balance to $19,920 

$21.55 paid on 10/19 bringing balance to $19,915 

21.51 paid on 10/25 bringing balance to $19,910

$35.50 payment on 10/27, bringing balance to $19,880

$45.64 payment on 11/9 bringing balance to $19,870