Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Getting Ripped Off On Student Loans

I am wicked pissed off right now at Sallie Mae. The DAY that my student loan was disbursed to MRU, I started paying on it even though I didn't have to. My grace period ended this month, as I am no longer in school full-time. But I have made 20 payments without actually needing to. 

Now, maybe I just really suck at math, but I feel like having paid $1,000 (literally) on a loan with a 6% interest rate on a balance of $8500 ($4250 for the first 4 months of payments) should have brought my principal balance down by more than just $70. 

Can I seriously be paying $50 a MONTH in finance charges on a student loan?? Because if so, that's fucking RIDICULOUS. How does anyone ever pay this shit off??? 

I sent them an email like "WTF???" and they replied with some generic email including the equation for calculating simple interest loans. I am not fucking sitting here and doing the math out. 

I am also pissed off that the incentive for paying on time (1% interest drop for every 12 months of on-time payments) does not include payments made ahead of schedule. 

Student loans are such a fucking racket. When I was in college in 2000-2001, the interest rates on student loans were like 3%. One of the two loans I had to take out this time gave me an interest rate of 8.6%. That's higher than the interest rate was on my CAR. And I have a credit score of 790!!!!!

I am so mad. 

But on the bright side, I got my car back today!!!!!!!! 

12 comments:

Whitecoat Tales said...

Loan industry=ridiculous

At least your loans are somewhat reasonable.

I recently crossed 6 digits of debt, and I still have a year to go. Then I'll have 3-6 years of grad student level pay, and THEN I'll have a real job.
Admittedly, once I have a real job, it'll get better.

Anonymous said...

I made the 36 payments early to get the 1% off. I literally mailed in 2 payments a month for 18 months. Guess what happened? They held my 1% rate reduction until the 36 month mark! FUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm paying 200/month, and more than half that goes to interest. My FICO is also 800. It's all such a pile of shit that I might need pills for salvation.

JLK said...

@WhiteCoat - I have lots of sympathy for you med students, up to a point, because when you're done you'll be making shittons more money than most of the rest of us. I have yet to meet a doctor of any kind who's driving a beater car and lives in a crappy apartment. LOL. But yeah, your debt is exponentially higher than mine, so I feel for you.

@Anonymous - Doesn't it make you just want to hurt someone??? Like maybe the previous generations who made it so that we HAVE to go to college now just to get a decent job, but college is soooo much more expensive and those fuckers started rackets like Sallie Mae so they can get rich off of my need to get a job!

I mean, as if college wasn't $$$$ enough, now we're paying like 4 times what it actually cost just to finance our education!!! My first loan back from '01 was only like $1500 and I paid it off a little less than 2 years ago. By the time I was done, I think I actually paid over $4k, and I paid it off EARLY.

leigh said...

i hate those fuckers over at sallie mae. i financed part of my undergrad (just a few k's, rest came out of pocket) with another loan servicer, but mega u uses sallie fucking mae. and i HATE them. i hate them all. i have plans to refi with my original loan servicer once i'm eligible for a refi.

i will mention my extreme gratitude for subsidized loans. that's what they give you when you're financially totally fucked. at least i won't be paying interest for a couple more months anyway... after that, all bets are off.

credit score of 800+ here, too- i got a car loan at a much better rate in 2005. wtf.

Candid Engineer said...

The math sounds right to me. You only paid down a fraction of the total loan amount ahead of time, and given that most of your payment is interest (at least in the beginning), it takes a while to pay that shit down.

If you want to look on the bright side, at least you were able to get an educational loan. Not everyone can do that, and college costs oh-so-much money. Every time you make a payment, just think about how their money enabled you to fulfill your educational dreams. :)

Professor in Training said...

I'm not familiar with how student loans work here in the US other than the fact that students get screwed but when I got my car loan last year any payments in excess of my minimum monthly amount came solely off the principal. I started paying 3X the payment $$$s each month and eventually emptied my savings account to pay off the balance in order to save paying the interest. Is this something that is even possible with student loans? If so, it would definitely be worth trying to squeeze in the extra money each month to lower the outstanding principal as this will also lower your interest $$$s.

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DuWayne Brayton said...

It is nothing less than insanity...And here I am, just getting started on mine.

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secure tabs said...

man this is the worst part of send your children to the college, when you don't have enough money to pay all the education, and when you say the word loan, your wife make that funny look, damn it!

Anonymous said...

I need someone to take a look at my loan.they charge over double what the loan is.it started with 59% and now 40% but the charge has not went down.

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