Boston Student Loan Lawyer

Law Office of Adam S. Minsky

5 Steps to Start Tackling Your Student Loans

| Articles Default Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Private Student Loans Student Loans 101

It’s time to start liberating yourself from your student loan debt.

We’ve got a true student loan crisis – there’s over $1.4 trillion in student debt, and that number keeps on rising. The average undergrad leaves college with nearly $40,000 in student loans, and over 7 in 10 recent graduates are in the red. Twenty-five percent  of student loan borrowers are in distress – meaning they are in a suspended status, behind in payments, or in default. And things only seem to be getting worse.

With this as a backdrop, it’s easy to become paralyzed. The loan balance figures and payment amounts can be distressing. Figuring our your repayment options can be overwhelming. It doesn’t help that loan servicers often provide incorrect or misleading information. It’s easy to feel like you’re lost.

But ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away; student loans don’t just disappear. Even if there are only imperfect solutions out there right now, it’s important to take stock of your situation, figure out what your options are, and optimize your student loan management approach. Only then can you start getting on the path to student debt freedom. Here’s how you can get started.Read More

BREAKING: CFPB Goes After Major Private Student Loan Holder

| Articles Current Events Default Private Student Loans

This is a developing story.

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has reached a major enforcement agreement with National Collegiate Student Loan Trust, the holder of hundreds of thousands of student loan accounts, about its debt collection practices. This agreement has the potential to impact thousands of student loan borrowers across the country.

Background

National Collegiate Trust (“NCT”) is a collection of individual trust entities that purchased hundreds of thousands of private student loan accounts from commercial lenders (mostly banks) through securitization. In other words, banks bundled many private student loan accounts together, and then sold the bundles to NCT. When student loan borrowers with NCT-purchased accounts became unable to pay, NCT aggressively pursued these borrowers through private debt collectors and litigation.Read More

Who Is National Collegiate Trust?

| Articles Default Private Student Loans

National Collegiate Trust – formally known as National Collegiate Student Loan Trust, or NCSLT for short – is one of the biggest players in private student loan litigation. But you may never have heard of them. And you may not even realize that they claim to be the owner of your student loan.

Who, or What, is National Collegiate Trust?

NCSLT is not a student loan company; it’s not even a single organizational entity. There’s no call center, no corporate headquarters. Rather, NCSLT is a catch-all term used to describe dozens of individual trusts (the trusts are usually designated by a year and a trust designation – for example, “National Collegiate Student Loan Trust 2006-2”, or “National Collegiate Student Loan Trust 2007-1”). The NCSLT trusts contracts out student loan servicing operations and debt collection to various third parties (such as American Education Services, or AES), so you’ll probably never actually deal with one of the trusts directly.Read More

The Student Loan Lenders Most Likely to Sue You

| Articles Default Private Student Loans Student Loans 101

For most types of private student loans, the only way that the lenders can forcibly collect from borrowers is to file a lawsuit in court. That’s because most private student loan lenders do not have the same collections powers as the federal government – they generally cannot garnish wages, put a lien on a home, or seize any assets without first obtaining a court judgment. That judgment then gives the lender additional powers to pursue the borrower if he or she doesn’t start paying.

So you would think that all private lenders sue defaulted student loan borrowers, right? Well, that’s not necessarily true. In New York and Massachusetts (where I practice), let’s just say that some student loan lenders are more litigious than others. The following is based on my own personal anecdotal experiences representing student loan borrowers – it is not scientific, and it is by no means representative of national trends. And if your student loan lender isn’t on this list, it doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t be sued. But, perhaps my observations below can be insightful.Read More

Student Loan Tax Season Tips

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Tax time is a stressful time, I know. And if you have student loans, there’s even more to think about. Here are are some tax-related tips to help guide you.

Deduct Your Student Loan Interest

Some of the student loan interest that you paid during 2016 may be tax deductible, which could lower your tax bill. Watch for a 1098-E statement issued by your student loan lenders, which will show the total amount of interest payments during 2016. Just keep in mind that the amount of this deduction is capped, and it is phased out entirely for higher income earners. Be sure to talk to your accountant to see if you’re eligible for this deduction.Read More

Predatory Student Loan Relief Company is Sued

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Amy and Josh were just getting started, but they were already struggling. Amy had just completed nursing school, while Josh had just graduated from the police academy. They had two young children, and were struggling to keep up with massive private Navient student loan payments that they could barely afford.

That’s when they got a call from a company called “Consumer Protection Counsel” (CPC). CPC promised that if Amy and Josh simply stopped paying their private student loans – and started paying CPC instead – CPC’s team of experts and attorneys would protect them from Navient, and their private student loans would either be canceled or deemed uncollectible. Their credit histories would be protected and even repaired. All they had to do was sign a contract and pay a monthly fee. The deal seemed too good to be true, but Amy and Josh felt trapped by their student debt, and they didn’t know what else to do. After a series of high-pressure phone calls from CPC, they signed on the dotted line and began sending monthly payments to CPC – and stopped paying Navient.Read More

End-of-the-Year Student Loan News Roundup

| Articles Current Events Default For-Profit Colleges Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Policy & Reform Private Student Loans

2016 has been a big year in student loan law. We saw the release of Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE), a new income-driven repayment plan for federal student loans, although its rollout and implementation were a bit of a mess. We saw a continued federal crackdown on predatory for-profit schools which resulted in the collapse of ITT Technical Institute. The Obama administration issued final rules on student loan forgiveness and debt relief for students who were defrauded by their colleges and universities. And finally, Donald Trump was elected to be the next President, leading to a great deal of uncertainty about the direction of student loan programs.

There’s never a dull moment when it comes to student loan issues, and as the year comes to a close, there’s still a lot going on. Here are some highlights. Read More

7 Student Loan Protections to be Thankful For

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It’s been two weeks since the election, and there’s still much uncertainty about what the consequences of the election will be for student loan borrowers. While Hillary Clinton had mapped out a series of student loan reform proposals, Donald Trump has been far less specific about how he plans to deal with the $1.4 trillion in outstanding student debt.

In this time of uncertainty, and in keeping with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I think it’s a good time to take stock of what we have and be grateful. If you follow this blog, you know that I frequently write about problems and deficiencies with the the student loan system. And for good reason – student loans are a mess, with inefficient servicing, damaging debt collection, and the potential for life-altering negative consequences for borrowers. There’s a lot to be angry about, and a lot that should change.

But, there are also good elements of the student loan system – programs and laws that keep people in good standing, allow them to repay their loans fairly, and protect them from abuses. As we press forward into this period of change and uncertainty, we may have to do some hard work to preserve what we have.Read More

Student Loan Consolidation Errors Can Be Costly

| Articles Default Student Loans 101

This month, I’m wrapping up two cases that involved major federal student loan consolidation errors by the U.S. Dept. of Education and an assortment of student loan guaranty agencies, servicers, and debt collectors. These errors were massive, complex, and entirely not the borrower’s fault. They also took months of effort and coordination to resolve. I am ecstatic that we obtained good outcomes for my clients and got the errors fixed, but unfortunately these problems are not exactly uncommon. It really shouldn’t be this difficult for student loan borrowers, but sometimes, it is.

If you’re thinking about consolidating your federal student loans through the federal Direct consolidation program, there are potentially many benefits: streamlined repayment (one combined loan, one servicer, one monthly bill); simplified interest (if you are converting variable-rate loans to the fixed, weighted-average interest rate provided by the Direct consolidation program); default resolution if you are including defaulted federal student loans in the consolidation; and conversion to the Direct loan program through which you can access some additional student loan forgiveness and repayment programs.

But when things go wrong – especially due to mistakes outside of your  control – it can be a mess to untangle. Here are some things to watch out for.Read More

7 Reasons Why This Election Matters for Student Loan Borrowers

| Articles Current Events Default For-Profit Colleges Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform Private Student Loans Taxes

The presidential party conventions are over, and what seems like the “election that never ends” will actually be over in less than 100 days.

A lot is being said about this election – that it’s the most important in a generation; that it could fundamentally change the United States and its place in the world; that our core national values are at stake. All of this may be true, and there’s plenty of analysis out there about how big and important it is.

But as a student loan attorney, I can tell you without hesitation that this presidential election is going to have a real, tangible impact on millions of student loan borrowers. It’s going to have significant, lasting consequences. What these impacts and consequences look like, however, will depend primarily on who wins this November. If you have student loans, you should be paying attention. Here’s why:Read More