Student Loans

[Hoggie13]

We are recently out of our Chapter 13. We are now finding out that we have over 190,000 in student loans between my wife and I that we are supposed to start paying back. That is almost 2000.00 a month!!! Any advice???

[LadyInTheRed]

If they are federal student loans, an income based repayment plan may be available. You can find information at http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/understand/plans

If these are private student loans, contact the lender to see if they will work with you on a payment plan.

[justbroke]

LITR, I wonder if they could also consolidate them into a Federal loan while going on the income-based repayment plan? Or, can you only consolidate Federal loans? (I have one outstanding student loan, but have never consolidated or done the IBR plan.)

[LadyInTheRed]

I don't have any personal experience with private loans. But my understanding is that the government won't consolidate private loans with federal loans. A private lender might consolidate private and federal loans, but you usually aren't going to get better terms from the private lender. So, it's best to keep the federal loans separate. Borrowers with private loans have a much more difficult time if they can't make payments. Some private lenders offer consolidation. The following site has a list of private lenders that consolidate student loans: http://www.finaid.org/loans/privateconsolidation.phtml

[Hoggie13]

So I am asking if there are specialist (lawyers??) that deal with these student loan issues. We have consolidated unsibsidized loans. I am looking for the best solution for everyone.

[Hoggie13]

My question is, is there a specialist (lawyer group?) that can help my wife and I out with this issue? We have consolidated unsubsidized loans totalling over 190,000! I am pretty worried about this, as you could imagine....

[filingin08]

We're a few months behind you and expect to start repaying our SL sometime next Spring.

We're looking at an Income Based repayment plan and we anticipate doing our taxes married filing separately which will lower our total SL payments by about $125/month (versus doing maried filing jointly). It will be interesting to see if the math works the same in reality as it is on the calculators!

Something also to keep in mind is your occupation. DH and I both work at a state college, so our repayment period should be cut to 10 years based on our employer status.

I'm estimating I will end up paying about $36k on a total of $118k of loans. And my husband will bay about $60k on his $175k loans. A lot, yes (live and learn!), but the total SL payment will about half our BK payment, and if we can do BK for 60 months, SL for 120 should be a piece of cake. ;)

[bcohen]

As others have already posted, if these are federal student loans, you have income-based repayment plans available, which will reduce the monthly payments to an amount you can reasonably afford.

If these are private student loans, then you basically have the following options (assuming that you cannot reasonably pay the $2000 a month they are asking):
1) You could do nothing, let the loans default, and let the creditor(s) sue you under your state's nonbankruptcy laws. If you live in a state with generous non-bankruptcy exemptions and where wage garnishment is prohibited, this could be a reasonable option.
2) You could file another Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which will limit the amount which you are asked to pay toward the debt for the life of the plan, though the balance won't be discharged and could increase.
3) You could attempt to negotiate with the student loan companies, and if they won't agree to reasonable payments (which they probably won't) then you go back to options 1 and 2.

[LadyInTheRed]

My question is, is there a specialist (lawyer group?) that can help my wife and I out with this issue? We have consolidated unsubsidized loans totalling over 190,000! I am pretty worried about this, as you could imagine....

As demonstrated by bcohn's post, this is a great place to get help working through your situation.

It's not such a great place for a new member to get a recommendation for an attorney. It is against forum rules to recommend an attorney in the public forums and you are not yet able to send or receive PMs. So stick around and keep posting for a while. Once you are able to receive PM's ask again if anyone can recommend an attorney. Maybe you can help others benefit from your Chap 13 experience.

You can also try calling your local bar association for a referral. Better yet, ask your bankruptcy attorney.

[Medport]

I never thought of letting the loans default. I filed bk7 about 2.5 years ago and it mostly got rid of my credit card debt. I reaffirmed my 1st mort. but not the 2nd. I'm now having difficulty paying the 2nd and the student loans. I may let the 2nd default and see what happens, but its the student loans that are killing me. I've been fortunate enough over the past couple years to get enough hours at work and/or a 2nd job, but hours have been cut recently and I can't seem to find another job. From a quick search it seems that Ohio can only garnish 10% of your wages for student loans correct? That would save me around 100-150 a month which would help, but I really need to be saving around 250 to break even right now.

[mynameainttracy]

After reading these amounts, I really think I should give my dad a call and thank him for making me go to the cheap local college, making me live at home and paying cash each semester. (I could also pat myself on the back for not being smart enough to get into a better school) Then I should probably call one of my past employers and thank them for paying 100% of my grad school tuition.

Seriously though, I feel for anyone with these monster student loans. I don't know how anyone can afford college these days.

[treehugger1]

I have had an administrative wage garnishment for my student loans for a couple of years now. The DOE can do a 15% administrative garnishment without a court order. I am not sure if this is true for private loans.

The other thing you have to be careful of is the 15% - 20% outstanding balance default amount tacked onto your loans. It will depend upon what type of loan, and when the loan was taken. Like all student loan regulations, not all student loans (even all Federal) have the same options. because my loans were old Federal GSL from the mid-90's they did not charge the 15% - 25% collection fee.

On the other hand, I sleep peacefully knowing that a 15% lifetime tax (garnishment) is a small price to pay for my education and current career path. It turned out to be much better than a BK 13 for me.

[Blossoms]

I'm in Ohio too. Not sure if there's a cap on student loan garnishments here. I do know that Ohio allows 25 percent of after tax pay to be garnished for debts. Went through that last year, when my husband's pay got garnished for an old city tax debt. Hopefully the 25 percent isn't applicable for student loans. My husband had his paychecks garnished some years ago, for a defaulted federal student loan, but I can't remember what percentage they took.

I agree with the others that applying for an income based repayment plan asap, for any federal loans, is your best bet.

[billy99]

Your best would be to call and set up a payment plan that will work for you. The goal of these loan companies is to get a return on their investment, and they are typically willing to work with you in order to get their money. They sometimes can be a pain in the neck to deal with, however, and $190,000 in loans is a big chunk of money. How have you managed to go so long without having to make any payments so far? Are you working in your chosen field of study? I certainly understand your stress about the situation. Another option to consider would be to look into a debt consolidation company to help develop a long term plan to take care of the additional debt that you still have remaining.