Submitted by fattoush_republic t3_10mrx6y in personalfinance
A friend of mine has an extremely large amount of student loan debt. Between $200,000 and $210,000. I believe that the APR is around 9%, and that the loans are privately held by Sallie Mae.
She makes about $20 an hour (hours vary, however) and she has a minimum monthly payment of around $1,800. Of that, only $800 goes to principal. Her father is a co-signer on all of the loans, and he also does not earn a lot of money.
Personally, I don't have student debt (went to university abroad), so I'm not SUPER familiar with all of these things. I tried to suggest a few things, but she had reasons why each one wouldn't work in her case:
- Public sector loan forgiveness - she said it does not apply to private loans
- Try to negotiate a smaller monthly payment or income based repayment - she tried, they said no, and income based repayment doesn't work for private loans
- Find a bankruptcy lawyer and try to see if the incredibly difficult case of discharging student loans could be made - she doesn't have money to pay for a bankruptcy lawyer, literally almost every dollar she makes goes to the student loans
Is she mistaken on any of these? What other options remain? If I were in her position, I have no clue what I would do.
Her degree is in a field that would land her a job that would only pay $50,000-60,000 maximum, but it would require moving to another city... and then she would have to pay rent, on top of the minimum monthly loan payment. Plus, it will be incredibly hard for her to even get a job offer in her field with only a bachelor's degree.
Thanks for any advice that anyone here can offer.