Help me pay down my student loans
Donation protected
Hi folks,
I need your help. As many of my friends and family are aware, I've been struggling with a student loan debt load that's seemingly insurmountable, and I no longer see any hope of repaying my loans on my own. I'm asking for some assistance in paying down my debt so that I can actually go about living my life.
Here's my story:
My name's Andrew. I grew up in a blue-collar Irish-American family, and like a lot of poor kids, I saw higher education as this mythic stepping-stone to greater opportunity. That's why I decided to attend Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR, from 2006 to 2010, despite receiving no financial support from my biological family. Along the way, I took on student loan after student loan, which were one of the primary forms of financial aid Lewis & Clark offered me.
Unfortunately, as I've learned, even dreams aren't cost-free in the 21st century, and four years after graduating and paying down my loans, I'm still facing about $80,000 in student loans, which works out to just over $630 a month in payments. To be precise, I owe $30,267.49 to Great Lakes at a 6.7% interest rate over 10 years, and $45,917.05 to FedLoan Servicing at a 6.125% interest rate over 35 years, plus an exciting array of fees and other charges which get folded in toward the end of my loan term.
As some folks have pointed out, I affirmatively took out those loans by signing the paperwork that was put in front of me. Like a lot of poor kids, 18-year-old me knew essentially nothing about "credit" or "debt," and I bought into the financial marketing materials which passed for "loan counseling" from my lenders. In hindsight, I think I now understand the position I was in: a vulnerable, impressionable child who possessed the legal capacity to financially ruin myself at my college's and banks' behest.
I'm currently unemployed, but even before I was, I was making just a hair over $30,000 a year in the political/nonprofit sector, and couldn't always keep up on my loan payments. Although there are some great assistance programs for folks working in nonprofit or government, the ones for which I'm eligible require me to spend 10 years at a 501(c)3 organization, and only discharge about half of my debt. I accrued 4.5 years of nonprofit service before being laid off, which means that it'll be quite some time before any of my loans are up for forgiveness.
I don't see many other options. I've already enrolled every eligible loan into President Obama's consolidation program (twice), and investigated every deferment or forgiveness angle available to me; and although I've applied for every eligible hardship deferment due to unemployment, my Great Lakes loan is only discharged in the event of my death or total disability. The only other path forward I can see is default.
So, friends, I'm asking for your help. I can't pay off my loans on my own, and I would be eternally honored, grateful, and humbled if you'd be willing to chip in and help me defray the frightening debt load I'm facing.
I need your help. As many of my friends and family are aware, I've been struggling with a student loan debt load that's seemingly insurmountable, and I no longer see any hope of repaying my loans on my own. I'm asking for some assistance in paying down my debt so that I can actually go about living my life.
Here's my story:
My name's Andrew. I grew up in a blue-collar Irish-American family, and like a lot of poor kids, I saw higher education as this mythic stepping-stone to greater opportunity. That's why I decided to attend Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR, from 2006 to 2010, despite receiving no financial support from my biological family. Along the way, I took on student loan after student loan, which were one of the primary forms of financial aid Lewis & Clark offered me.
Unfortunately, as I've learned, even dreams aren't cost-free in the 21st century, and four years after graduating and paying down my loans, I'm still facing about $80,000 in student loans, which works out to just over $630 a month in payments. To be precise, I owe $30,267.49 to Great Lakes at a 6.7% interest rate over 10 years, and $45,917.05 to FedLoan Servicing at a 6.125% interest rate over 35 years, plus an exciting array of fees and other charges which get folded in toward the end of my loan term.
As some folks have pointed out, I affirmatively took out those loans by signing the paperwork that was put in front of me. Like a lot of poor kids, 18-year-old me knew essentially nothing about "credit" or "debt," and I bought into the financial marketing materials which passed for "loan counseling" from my lenders. In hindsight, I think I now understand the position I was in: a vulnerable, impressionable child who possessed the legal capacity to financially ruin myself at my college's and banks' behest.
I'm currently unemployed, but even before I was, I was making just a hair over $30,000 a year in the political/nonprofit sector, and couldn't always keep up on my loan payments. Although there are some great assistance programs for folks working in nonprofit or government, the ones for which I'm eligible require me to spend 10 years at a 501(c)3 organization, and only discharge about half of my debt. I accrued 4.5 years of nonprofit service before being laid off, which means that it'll be quite some time before any of my loans are up for forgiveness.
I don't see many other options. I've already enrolled every eligible loan into President Obama's consolidation program (twice), and investigated every deferment or forgiveness angle available to me; and although I've applied for every eligible hardship deferment due to unemployment, my Great Lakes loan is only discharged in the event of my death or total disability. The only other path forward I can see is default.
So, friends, I'm asking for your help. I can't pay off my loans on my own, and I would be eternally honored, grateful, and humbled if you'd be willing to chip in and help me defray the frightening debt load I'm facing.
Organizer
Andrew Riley
Organizer
Portland, OR
