Student Debt Giant Navient to Borrowers: You’re on Your Own

&gt; There is no expectation that the servicer will act in the interest of the consumer... Navient says its public statements encouraging borrowers to contact the company didn’t mean it would act in their best interest.<p>So, pardon in advance for the vulgar language, but why the fuck is this OK? From <i>any</i> company?<p>I&#x27;m getting real damn sick and tired of &quot;what the big print gives, the spidery print takes away&quot; and how we&#x27;re all just supposed to be OK with this, as if this is how the world works or some crap.<p>If your public advertising--especially, but not limited to, when administering a service on behalf of the government--explicitly says &quot;call us and we will help you,&quot; your company should not then be able to turn around and say &quot;well, caveat emptor for calling us, sucker.&quot; Meanwhile, the handful of agencies devoted to trying to help the individual get any kind of a fair shake from the company &quot;provider&quot; that <i>massively outguns</i> any one individual customer, are all under attack from all sides as being &quot;too heavy handed.&quot; (I love the CFPB, in case you can&#x27;t tell.)<p>Oh, and this whole &quot;consumer&quot; crap? I&#x27;m not a &quot;consumer,&quot; I&#x27;m a <i>customer</i>. I&#x27;m not consuming anything from a financial services provider, I&#x27;m using their services. Stop with the idea that all of us are just mindless drones, eating our Pac Man-like dots on the way to a swift end, and maybe get back to the idea that real people are on the other end of those faceless account numbers.<p>(FWIW, this applies to every company with mandatory, binding arbitration clauses, including the oh-so-enlightened participants in Y Combinator. Don&#x27;t restrict my ability to hold you to your side of the agreement while reserving all rights to pound me into the sand at your leisure.)

It&#x27;s mind-blowing how the majority of high school students are lied to each year about the ROI of college. The internet has re-written the rules, and high school educators don&#x27;t know how to teach that.<p>I would have benefited so much more from a program that taught how to be self-sufficient and the major, major benefits of living debt free.<p>Context: $150k in student loans - lucky enough to have an electrical engineering corporate job to (minimally) pay the bills.<p>EDIT: More Context: I went to an engineering focused private university, borrowed my way through the whole thing (housing, food, everything), parents didn&#x27;t pay a dime. Stupid? Yes.

&quot;[Navient pointed out]...more than 40 percent of loan balances it services for the Education Department are enrolled in income-based repayment plans.&quot;<p><i></i>Over 40%<i></i> of people with US Government-sponsored student loans--which were presumably taken out in order to advance the career prospects of the borrower--are not being paid sufficiently to repay their loans on the basis of their original issuance, _and this is presented as a good thing_.<p>Unbelievable.

While I appreciate that people are sour about student debt, I don&#x27;t think Navient, qua big business, should behave in any other way.<p>I personally think public universities should be free and highly selective, rather than the opposite. But I also think taking out loans with no plan to repay them is criminally stupid. If the education product being sold is fraudulent, go after the fraudulent institution (as has been done). But the bank? They&#x27;re just a bank. And no, I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s good that we have banks financing student debt, but I sure as hell don&#x27;t blame banks for doing it.<p>This is a fabulous example of why privatizing what should be a public service is a terrible idea, yes, and this is the ridiculous game we get to play as a result... blaming the bank for playing hardball over money. Really?

My wife and I have dealt with these goons before. Their favorite trick is missing a payment, leaving it on a desk and then despoiting it weeks later, after charging fees. Or, if you have 2 loans, they are sure you never pay any of them down, even if you literally tell them (pay loan #1 all of this months payments, ending it). They purposefully screw up...<p>All roads lead to money in politics allowing them to do whatever they want and not have repercussions.

Why is a student loan servicer any different from a mortgage servicer? I don&#x27;t go to my mortgage servicer for leniency or charity; why should my student loan servicer be any different?<p>If we want student loan servicer behavior to change, we need to legislate it. Just like we did (or didn&#x27;t, depending on your point of view) for mortgage servicers.

when they took over my loans from salliemae they told us (in writing) that auto-pay would transition.... then it didn&#x27;t transition, and they tried to ding me for a missed payment. what a nightmare. ultimately my issue was resolved, but only after i filed a complaint with a team at the federal student aid office that handles disputes that cannot be resolved through the lender:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;studentaid.ed.gov&#x2F;sa&#x2F;repay-loans&#x2F;disputes&#x2F;prepare&#x2F;contact-ombudsman" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;studentaid.ed.gov&#x2F;sa&#x2F;repay-loans&#x2F;disputes&#x2F;prepare&#x2F;co...</a><p>then a navient person in that department reached out to me almost immediately.<p>Edit:<p>You can also file complaints for general consumer financial help here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.consumerfinance.gov&#x2F;complaint&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.consumerfinance.gov&#x2F;complaint&#x2F;</a>

Navient is consistently the worst company I&#x27;ve ever dealt with, including Comcast.

Maybe this is tangential but this is a theme that seems to have infected schools themselves as well. I was recently swindled (yes, straight up swindled) by my university. I go to a uc (not riverside or merced) and the student health and wellness center literally swindled me out of almost a hundred dollars by using fine print. To protect my anonyminity i wont go into details but rest assured a called every authority i could and nothing was done. Consider that and then look at the swelling administration, lack of class availability, the sheer cost of attending and finally and most importantly the lack of meaningful learning. Its all a huge scam. But you need a degree if you want to have a high quality of life (unless youre exceptional in some way which the average dude is of course not) so nobody can do a damn thing about it. Fuck this shitty sytem.

&gt;“What this means for the Education Department is that it needs to fire Navient,” Bergeron said. “Damn the costs.”<p>This is literally how costs go up. &quot;OMG we need this, damn the costs&quot; &quot;OMG why does everything cost so much, why is the debt so high?&quot;

Everyone, if you are with any major big loan lender, please consider refinancing under So-Fi or others.

Honestly, this is a private corp acting in its own best interests under the law. Everyone here complaining that Navient is horrible... this is what capitalism is. If you don&#x27;t like the law, talk to your congressman&#x2F;senators and get the law changed.<p>IMHO the schools are the bad guys here.. they are taking advantage of a situation where the government will just hand loans to everyone and there is no way they can lose. Why not just make an undergraduate degree a public good at this point. Taxpayers are already paying to bail all these people out, it is partially a public good already except the students who hold all the debt have to go through hell and Navient gets a cut of the taxpayer money in the process.

Government launches a mass amount of federal student loans, demand skyrockets, offer does not, prices skyrocket. Basic economical interference.

So does anyone know where to find stats on student debt amounts outstanding, the maturity schedules, and the proportion of variable rate to fixed rate debt? I&#x27;m curious to see how vulnerable the country is to default risk should interest rates move upward or some other shock to the economy take place.

Anyone here know if this whole mess is going to end badly?This is something I google a lot as I kind of don&#x27;t want to pay, but I suffer from selection bias and HN usually has good insight on things.

The way I see it, maybe there is a misunderstanding going on, Or maybe Navient&#x27;s publicity materials are too touchy-feely.<p>According to the article, Navient is a private company, So shouldn&#x27;t they have an expectation of return on Investment. This is not the U.S. government, which may Forgive debt.<p>Another point is why the hunger for expensive education, Which may be a Marxist critique, but since when did A credential make you a better software designer.<p>People are dying all over the globe, and we are worried About the top 20 percent wage earners of the superpower USA.

Institutionalized debt slavery.

When public agencies push for more than kickback money, they always run the risk of being declared unconstitutional in a costly court battle that at best case undermines the agencies&#x27; budget.<p>The CFPB is young and they might have bat higher than they should have.<p>Take a page out of the SEC playback and settle for kickbacks.

Calling Anonymous. Retrain your targets.

So we shouldn&#x27;t believe something an enormous corporation says? Shocking.

Student loan money is awesome. Go to a state school, pay for school with PELL grants and working. Take the loan money and bank&#x2F;invest&#x2F;refinance stuff with it. The interest doesn&#x27;t start accruing until after graduation so until then it&#x27;s free money. The worst thing you can do with it is actually pay for school with it, especially an expensive private school for a degree with uncertain job prospects.