http://www.jerseysmarts.com/2010/11/03/update-wheres-my-4300-student-loan-check-day-15/

The e-mail I sent here was to that near-useless e-mail address that Eggshins suggested. I received no response.

Unfortunately, your story is all too common. And it’s not just NJHESAA that sticks it to folks like you who are in dire economic straits, but it’s all private student loan companies. That’s why there is such an uproar right now over private student loans. You should head over to the Project on Student Debt (http://projectonstudentdebt.org/index.php) to see what they’re doing to fight the practices of these organizations.

Oh, and NJHESAA’s suggestion that your co-signers should be picking up your slack show how out of touch with reality they really are. Look, I work in finance and I know that if you have a co-signer, they are legally obligated to make the payments. However, I also know that if you have a Borrower who is struggling and they actively reach out to you for help, then you work with that Borrower. The Borrower that you go after is the one that doesn’t call, doesn’t reach out, and doesn’t ever send a check. Good for you for reaching out to NJHESAA to try to work with them. And shame on NJHESAA for not finding a suitable solution for both you and them.

Good luck,
Joe

Thanks to low rates and government subsidies, people who will never have the ability or intention of repaying their federally-guaranteed student loans (and believe me, their are many that default, seek reinstatement, borrower more and never plan to repay) can obtain loans at low-rates and a free education at the expense of tax-payers. Because banks know they are going to be repaid by the government, they can make lousy credit decisions with little or no due diligence. And since schools know their applicants will all have the money to pay whatever they charge, they continue to inflate the costs education, which hurt all student-borrowers (and their foolish co-signers). Schools have also lowered academic standards to increase enrollment. So, the market is flooded with people who are very nearly functionally illiterate, but have a college degree making them virtually indistinguishable from those who are truly qualified thanks to their professionally-prepared resume – but I digress.

Low rates and government subsidies have introduced moral hazard into the lending system that ultimately transfers all the risk and none of the reward to the taxpayers while schools and lenders continue to reap enormous profits. Then, upon graduation, we see student-borrowers with massive debt, high unemployment and no way to repay. As you well know through your experiences with HESAA, their is very little a borrower can expect in the way of assistance in the event of hardship.

Perhaps if money was a little harder to obtain, we wouldn’t see so many students agree to attend school programs that will cost $80,000.00 in a career field that will likely never pay them more than $40K.

It’s easy to blame the schools and the lenders, clearly they are the charlatans in all this, but I prefer to blame the borrowers for trading in their own common sense as they blindly and foolishly buy into (actually, borrower into) the ideal that the costs of education translates into financial success and a better life. This used to be true back in the day when it cost about $1,000.00 per year to go to school and a student could work his way through school. Now, you have would-be teachers with $70K in debt at a time when teachers’ salaries are getting hammered and unemployment in the field is skyrocketing. Who is to blame for a situation like this, the charlatan lender and price-gouging school or the idiot who agreed to take on the burden of this debt load?

Thanks to low rates, and the call for lower rates, we’ll only see more of this. The only victims are the taxpayers who want nothing to do with your schooling.

Joe, you still cannot make monthly payments online in the amount you choose when you choose. You can only create an automatic flat amount on a specific date (which doesn’t give you any flexibility) or pay by credit card at a fee.

My daughter is just finishing her freshman year. I’ll be looking for more transparancy and better accountability in future loans.

Thanks for the comment. I thought I’d offer a few notes.

– It’s terrible that you have to monitor your credit just to ensure that NJHESAA isn’t reporting the wrong information. There’s more money that you have to spend each month that could/should be better applied paying down student loan debt.

– NJHESAA actually just added online payments and account information…but you have to pay extra for the online payments! Since I know NJHESAA reads this blog let me send them a brief message – we know that you are charged every time someone makes an online payment via a credit card or an online check, but that’s the cost of doing business! If you’re not prepared to take the 2% – 3% hit on each online payment, then you shouldn’t offer the service.

– Also, the NJHESAA is the wrong name for this organization because it is a private loan agency, not a government entity. For years I thought that I was battling with the State of New Jersey and turns out that it’s actually a private organization that accesses bonds through state issues. In other words, it’s supported by the legislature which SHOULD require it to be a government entity and operate the same way that other government programs operate.

It appears that the frustration among NJHESAA borrowers continues…

The whole lack of online payments/account management thing is absolutely inexcusable, but I’d expect nothing less from something run by the State of NJ.

I actually once got them to direct me to some sort of online third-party payment gateway (after the mandatory two disconnects and 45-1hr on hold), but much to my amazement, the only credit card they *didn’t* accept was Visa. Fantastic.