Herded into default, borrowers are then hounded to repay student loans . . . ourselves to your money. More below. "Lakisha Johnson figured all she needed was her 2016 tax refund to get her and her daughter out of a homeless shelter and back into a place of their own." The $8,220 federal tax refund would go a long way to help Lakisha find housing. "The U.S. Department of Education had other plans." But, of course, The US Department of education had other plans! "On the phone, an Internal Revenue Service agent told her the Department of Education (DOE) was “holding back” the $8,220 refund to recoup some of her student loan debt. It would probably do the same next year, the agent told her, to recover the rest of the nearly $17,000 she owed. Johnson was confused. The two student loans she took out in 2006 in hopes of becoming a medical assistant amounted to only $6,625. Whenever she fell behind on her payments, she would be enrolled in one of the forbearance plans promoted in a continuous stream of emails she received from Navient Corp, the largest loan servicer working under contract for the DOE. An Oct. 4, 2011, email, for example, stated: “You may be able to qualify for a deferment or forbearance, which can postpone your loan payments and keep your loan from going into default.” She was learning only now that those plans, while allowing her to stall payments, didn’t stop her debt from ballooning as interest and fees piled up. And she was now in default, prompting the DOE to move to collect." Luckily, Lakisha can trot on down to the Bankruptcy Court and file for bankruptcy which will stay these proceedings. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha, just kidding, there is no bankruptcy stay for student loans. Uncle Sam will get his due, fuck you! I am sure Lakisha was given full information on her options for repayment, right. Hahahahahahahahahahaha, oh hell no, she was steered into the least beneficial program, one which allowed her debt to increase dramatically. "That was only the half of it. Until contacted by Reuters, Johnson didn’t realize that she could have avoided the entire ordeal by enrolling in one of the government’s income-based repayment plans — an option she said Navient never discussed with her. Most of these plans allow for monthly payments as low as zero and forgive any remaining debt after 20 years. “I didn’t think it was going to double up or stack up, or cause me to lose the money I had worked for this whole time,” she says. “This is a big hit. They’ve put me in a deep situation.'" The Department of Education got the gold mine, Lakisha got the shaft. How cool is that?
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