Day 72 of 100 Days of Blogging

I don't know if yall have been following the student loan issues of late. Here's a news article with some info on it. What it comes down too is that several student loan lenders are no longer providing student loans.

We had completed our financial aid paperwork for May-term, Summer 1 & 2, and Fall a few months ago. A few weeks ago, we were contacted by the financial aid office at the university to let us know that there had been some changes with our lender and we needed to reclaim our loans. We did so immediately and thought it was all taken care of.

That is, until today! Today was the day we were supposed to be able to sign the paperwork so our excess money could be given to us (we utilize some of our financial aid money for living expenses while we're in school). Went in to sign the paperwork and we were shocked to be told that we owed money. The business office said our loans had not come in. So off we went to the financial aid office where we spoke with one lady. She couldn't find any reason our loans hadn't come in, so she said we'd need to meet with the Loan Coordinator who was out of the office at lunch. We had to get back to class, so we agreed to come back once class got out.

We went back in and were shocked to find out that our loan lender just did not send our loan money to the school. In talking with him, this lender apparently has done this repeatedly in the past year. From what we can determine, our old lender (that we've used since undergrad days) was bought out by a big banking institution and since then, this big banking institution (who I so want to name, but am choosing not to at this point) has been screwing people over.

So, what is the solution????? We talked for quite a while to the very helpful loan coordinator and he is going to cancel all our loans with this lender and we will be working with a new lender. However, this means at least a week before we can get our excess money. Not too swell to find this out when we had been counting on receiving the money in the next day or so (once we request it, it takes around 24 hours to receive it). So, we have to redo all our paperwork. What a mess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And all this so we can be under even more debt that we already are. It sucks that getting the education we need costs so much so that we can then get jobs that don't pay very much and we'll be paying off student loans until we're 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!