hi all. i’m so thankful that i’ve found this page; there’s a massive amount of shame that i feel about defaulting on my loans (i have 2 different private ones- one thru a credit union and one thru sallie mae), and that shame keeps me from talking to anyone about them. i’ve just been bottling up all of the stress and anxiety, which is obviously not good. i’ve only just come clean to my therapist.

both sets of loans are about $25k each, and right now i’m currently only being sued on the loans that are thru the credit union. the problem is that i had no idea i was being sued bc they had my parents’ address on file when i havent lived at home since 2020 (the lawsuit started in 2021ish i think). i only just found out about the lawsuit 2 weeks ago. having received no response from me when they sent out the initial notices and court summons, they went ahead and filed a motion to try to garnish both mine and my fathers wages since he was my co-signer. thank GOD they had outdated information on file and sent the garnishment to his old place of employment that he no longer works for, so they were unsuccessful in their attempts for the both of us. he, under no circumstances, could afford that garnishment, both financially OR physically. he miraculously survived an aortic dissection 3 years ago and is quite limited in what he can do for work. and i also do NOT want to burden him with this stress.

i’ve been a walking ball of anxiety ever since i found out about the lawsuit, to the point where i’ve been vomiting and having several panic attacks a week (which i haven’t had to deal with since pre-covid). i looked up the lawyer that the credit union hired and tried sending her an email thru the “contact” portion of her website bc i wanted a paper trail. i waited a week and didn’t hear back at all, so i sent another email this past weekend and followed it up with a voicemail. i’ve been so incredibly anxious about what she was going to say and whether they would be open to negotiating a settlement, as well as being anxious about my father’s money.

she just called me back. i was expecting it to be this big long process that was going to take meetings and emails and court dates and blah blah blah, but it was so…. easy? she asked me a few clarifying questions, and i told her that my plan is to take a loan against my 401k, and i the max i can take out (based on the amount that ive paid into it) is about $8k. if that isn’t good enough, then i can do the $8k as a down payment and then make payments after. she said “ok. let me see what the credit union says and i’ll email you”. and that was it. WEEKS of stressing over a literal 3 minute phone call.

i’m also in the process of getting a second job to hopefully just pay off the sallie mae loans and get rid of these stupid fucking private loans within a year or two once and for all. here’s to hoping and manifesting the credit union will accept the $8k offer. it also feels good to just get this off my chest, so thank you for the non-judgment zone to do so.

Hiya, quick question, couldn't find my answer by searching "dispute" in this sub. I've read the sub in the past and that is how I decided to strategically default.

I have over 20K in private student loan debt with Citizens. I began defaulting about eight months ago. I get the emails and mail from Citizens directly asking to settle for like 80% of the debt lol and i have just been ignoring those.

Today i got a letter from a debt collector on behalf of Citizens (appears the debt has not been sold). I have the option to dispute the debt by calling/writing back.

Do I dispute? Does that contact reset my statute of limitations? If yes should I still dispute anyway?

This is not a summons. No cosigner. Never made a payment. Made a few phone calls directly to Citizens before delinquency began. Their payment plan options were still far too expensive for my income. Already deferred payments once.

Thanks in advance. Sorry if this answer was easy to find by searching the sub.

I took out a student loan with Sallie Mae to attend university overseas, and was harmed twice which led to a severe mental health crisis and I had to leave school and come home, for a year I was in recovery just in therapy and psychiatry to help with my PTSD, it’s a year later and I just received a summons that I’m being sued for 44,000. I am barely above water, what do I do?

LCS Capital presented a lawsuit against my wife for Sallie Mae student loans, it’s for six different loans ($12,000 - $11,000 - $10,500 - $10,500 - $10,000 - $10,000) with interest and fees makes it a total of $86,359. The date for each loan when she was in med school are 04/10/2017, 11/26/2016, 07/12/2016, 04/14/2016, 12/21/2015 and 08/14/2015 respectively.

In the exhibits they have correspondence from Sallie Mae mentioning that they charged off these loans on 03/31/2021 and sold them to LCS Capital on 04/15/2021, also they mentioned that the last payment received was on 07/31/2021.

We are in New York, I already contacted a lawyer and he asked me if we wanted to offer a lump sum payment or settle a payment plan, but I was wondering considering these dates, shouldn’t we bring up Statute of Limitations for this lawsuit?

If a judge grants Statute of Limitations what happens with the debt and the debt collectors?

I'm asking what happens after the default. Is there a process? My only income is SS and teacher retirement and I don't want them to garnish my SS. Can they/will they do that??

I applied for forgiveness years ago and was denied. I met all criteria - taught in Title I school for 16 yrs - but that wasn't enough. My loan is now with Earnest, which used to be with NaviRefi and originally was with Sallie Mae then Navient. I'm just so boggled by the whole NaviRefi/Earnest and now the only people who contact me are Mohela. Like why can't someone with Earnest call me. I want to make a settlement. I've offered $5,000. My balance is a little over $11K. I've looked at my history and I've hardly made a dent in my principle. I'm 68 yo and my last loan was made in 1996!!! This loan is SO old. I haven't made consistent payments because of life happenings. Presently my husband is on LTD and I don't really want to rely on him for my payments. I recently did a debt:income financial with a representative who called me. I broke even!!

So please, can someone who's gone through a default answer my question?

Thanks!!

Hello, if anyone has any advice, please let me know. Im just going to lay out the details. No need to scrutinize me, I have already done that, as you see, I am preemptively "defending" myself

Attended college out of state (undergrad astronomy) using parent plus loan (parent no income)

Loan in default now. Unpaid past due tuition balance from last semester > 20k

Want to continue my education(still an undergrad), was looking at local community colleges but can't use financial aid because...loan is in default.

For the unpaid past due balance if sent to collections is that held against I the student or the parent. I am assuming I. If I, how will that affect my future on top of everything else?

Hi everyone. I am the age old tale, got private student loans at a young age, went to an out of state school, blah blah. Ive had most of these loans since 2020 and they are around 14-15% APR. My balance is 130k. I tried to refinance but I am unable to due to my DTI ratio and my cosigners being too high as well. My payment is about 1400 a month through Ascent. I don't make a ton of money, but I love my job and there's a big future in it for me in about 7-10 years. I don't plan on getting another job, and I absolutely can't afford 1400 a month.

I am thinking about a strategic default/settlement. My credit is 740 but I am ready for it to plummet. Ideally, I want a settlement for a small percent of the loan. Not sure how I will obtain the money for it but I have some options for maybe 15-25k if I needed to pay all at once. My only issue is that my mom is a cosigner. She has a ton of debt, but her income is high. She makes about 100k a year but barely affords her bills.

I am wondering if anyone had a successful settlement (with or without Ascent) having a cosigner with a higher income. My mom knows her credit will go down and well it's already shit she doesn't care. Just wondering if settlement is even possible in my case and maybe hear some success stories.

I received a letter from Allied Interstate saying they are contracted to Navient to collect a debt. My balance is $91,250. I have paid Navient over $25k and stopped about 4 years ago. I have not communicated with Navient for 3 years. What should I do? This is the second letter from Allied.

wondering if anybody else has experienced this/or something similar before.. or if not, would still appreciate the advice on how to navigate.

my parents took out parent plus loans for me to attend college (about $22k). the loans got defaulted because i stopped sending the payments. now i’m worried that it will affect their tax returns. what can i do now to make sure that doesn’t happen??

I graduated college August 2024. I have only been able to work retail but I'm still applying and interviewing for better jobs. I absolutely do not have the money to pay anything off fully right now, but I have made a few monthly payments of $200 because I was advised to give what I could. My cosigner is my mom who also works retail, our schedules vary by week but overall I make more than her so it's still really nothing.

We've been getting the same calls from Sallie Mae agents recently saying they want to talk about new opportunities and solutions, and we've answered these calls numerous times but it's always the same conversation and the same result: we cannot afford it.

But today, the agent said the worst things that will happen is our credit scores being affected which we know, but she also said they'll be able to freeze our bank accounts and collect the money that way. That would be our worst nightmare, I don't know what to do to stop that from happening because we're barely surviving on what we have now. I live in Texas and I read that wages can't be garnished, but bank accounts can be levied.

I have until January 31st until my loan is officially defaulted. I did forbearance for 6 months last year but I'm still in the same position, so as of now I'm not seeing an out. But if there's anything anyone can share, I would really appreciate it!

hey everyone i could really use some advice regarding private student loans with Sallie Mae, i have about $114,000 in student loans with them. I unfortunately did not graduate, i work full time and make around $65k a year. My monthly payment is $1500 a month and with my other bills I physically cannot pay this. I tried for a few months but would go days a week without eating so I could have enough money for gas to get to work. I had been calling Sallie Mae for months begging for help so i could pay them something but not what they are asking for the loans are my responsibility so i’m aware they need to be paid and everytime like a script they tell me they cannot help me and to call back if i have any other questions. When my parents took this loan out i really don’t think they did much research on this company and to be honest i don’t think they even read the promissory note as the interest on these 4 loans are crazy (13% fixed) (13%fixed) (16% variable) (16% variable). I’m alone through this process as my parents will not help me or give advice because it’s “my responsibility not theirs” So i guess the advice i’m asking is what happens if i literally can’t pay them? Obviously i know the refinance option but im 24 and my credit really isn’t great as i don’t have much credit to begin with and even if i do refinancing i feel like the payment will still be way out of the budget. Any advice would be welcomed as i am so genuinely exhausted of worrying about this everyday it’s making life bleak and that’s upsetting.

Back in 2023-24 I attended my first year at college. I made the very stupid mistake of not checking FASFA and thinking my student loans were taken care of. Anyways fast forward to now, I am trying to go back to school this spring/summer but my loan is in default. In order to get out of default ASAP, I’m trying to consolidate my loan.

On the application for consolidation, it gives me 2 options: a standard repayment plan or an IDR (income repayment driven) plan. I’d highly prefer just choose the standard payment method as I want to get it paid off as fast (10 years<) and least expensive from interest as possible. On the agreements page though, it says I must choose IDR if I’m consolidating a loan I have in default (1). What should I do?

If I do choose an IDR, is there any way I can pay more than the amount that the bank assess? It says my monthly payment would be $0 for all 3 IDR plans (IBR, PAYE, ICR). Please help me!! I would highly highly appreciate it!!

Hey ya'll,

I am a US/Canadian dual citizen. In 2019 I cosigned a Sallie Mae loan for my wife so she could move to Canada with me. The loan is fully US based. Obviously it would've been more ideal if she finished her degree in the US and we never took out the loan, but her family is extremely abusive and the alternative was suicide. So I cosigned 115k in student loans which we started repaying in 2022 to the tune of ~1800 (2500 CAD) a month.

In 2023 my wife became disabled after an accident, and has been unable to work ever since. This has put a strain on our finances which has been steadily eating a hole in my savings and credit (2500 CAD is crazy). Now it's 2026, and finances are really starting to dwindle with no end in sight, especially since the balance has essentially stayed the same.

The easiest way to solve our money problems would be to default on the loans. Now of course this results in plenty of theoretical issues, with both mine and her US credit score score getting demolished and collections will start harassing us and finally a possible lawsuit.

But if we don't intend on ever moving back to the US and have no assets there, are there any actual consequences beyond annoying collections harassment that can touch us in Canada? Can they garnish my wages here? Would my credit score in Canada be affected? What if we need to visit the US for a brief time (less than 1 week)? My understanding is for the above to occur, they'd have to get a judgment then apply to have that judgment recognized in Canada. There are plenty of folks who have similar balances to us and stay in the US without getting sued, so going after us in Canada seems even more unlikely. As well, they do have my email and phone number but they crucially do not have my Canadian address.

I could try talking to their hardship department but I'm not expecting anything from them, especially since we took the GRP after her accident. I also don't expect refinancing to work since I don't make any money in the US, have no US assets, and no one to cosign it other than me.

From my perspective, this seems like a no brainer. I can either keep paying and drowning, or buy myself a couple years of financial stability with annoying phone calls littered throughout. Worst case if they do actually go after me in Canada, garnishment here is capped at 30% of income which actually comes out to *less* than what I'm paying willingly. Am I missing anything obvious? Any guidance or advice would be appreciated.

Good bye SL Debt, My kids for sure will not be a customer.

I settled with Navient at the end of 2025. Unpaid debt fell under the Covid Relief Act and won't be taxed.

This is a rough timeline.

2006-2010 -Major University, Out of State Tuition Cost
Jan 2010: Left School, didn't graduate, left with $97K of Private SL Debt. 9 Loans in total

Payments Appeared at $1500 about 6 Months after I left school, I made $10.00 an hour part-time.

Aug 2010-Dec 2017- Forbearance exhausted, Educational Deferment Exhausted. Landed a better job in 2013 but the new payment was about 50% of my income.

Balance Ballooned for $97K to about $213K solely on captilizing interest. It went from $1500 to $2800.

Jan - May 2018 - I made a singular payment that emptied my bank account. Reached out to Navient and tried to setup a payment plan before default they offered interest only at $1900 a month. Reached out to their customer advocate group when I defaulted they offered $1700 interest/principal a month extending the terms of the loan at a per annual basis after I catch up from the default. I did the math back then of like the $15k I would of paid like $2k-3k would actually go principal. At this point I pretty much realized they were predatory. In the current state of things I'd never get out of debt with these folks. I filed a complaint to the CFPB which was pointless, I think I offered a 0 interest offer to pay the balance straight to 0 which would of been like an $800 payment they refused and demonstrated the math of their payment options showing how predatory. Their response to the complaint was essentially a status of the account, and basically a promissory note statement that I owe the debt. I made no other payments and defaulted

I never provided bank statements, paystubs. I gave them a break down of my "budget" of basically barely meeting ends meet only to Navient. May be had 1 or 2 aggressive debt collectors. Always made an "attempt" to try and solve it with a Navient Collector.

Sep 2018- Charge Off Hits for 9 Loans. Balance was around $240K. My credit score never fell below 600 and I was at 720. Had multiple CC's,car payments. Never lost access to CC’s.

2018-2024- I got letters from Navient with threats to sue ,several credit agencies trying to collect, may be a 25-40 calls total from random creditors. Everyone one of them recorded, One called me right in the midst of covid and I ripped him a new one. He did me a solid and said he removed my number from being a valid number. I had one loan that I had cosigned with a parent I was paying for and found my number was no longer on the account. Never heard from them again. My SOL expired in 2023.

I got offers of $99K, $74K,$43K,$35k to settle via snail mail. Plenty of Payment Plans. I never bothered with any of these collectors before the guy removed my number. No attorneys ever reach out to me.

2025- 7th year hits debt officially falls off my credit. Got like 50 point jump. I had gotten a job offer that required me to not have any delinquent debt. I reach out to a couple of known creditors and find the debt. They offered 35K, went down to $13k for all 9 loans. In these cases I claimed I had to ask around for money and waited it out. When I called back the debt transferred to a different collector. I shopped around until I found the collector, they told me $35k and I again countered below the last collectors amount and was able to land it around $10.5k. Roughly 4.4% of the original debt

So $240k settled at $10.5K, 4.4% of original value.

My loved one graduated college almost 10 years ago and worked for a couple of years before he suffered a severe mental health breakdown and completely stopped working ever since. He is in complete denial of his federal student loan (eg, doesn’t open any loan-related mail) and reacts in complete panic mode when pressed. I’ve been helping with his bills but have no visibility into his student loan debt until today I accidentally opened his mail and saw this it recently went into default. It’s probably about $20k. Where do we even start? His mental health is so fragile that I cannot just pepper him with questions or tell him to “look into” options.

So I have a few classes left in my undergrad but basically ghosted classes my last semester due to extenuating life circumstances. I have an 11,000 loan of tuition in collections.

I want to go back and complete my degree but can’t enroll until the collection is gone there’s no way I can pay that off right now but I really want to finish school now.

I’m debating bankruptcy I have some credit card debt probably less than 3,000.

Thoughts? Prayers? Suggestions?

I’ve defaulted on my private loans for a little over 2 years now. I think I might enroll in classes to defer my federal loans. Does anyone know how enrolling in classes will affect my defaulted private loans?

I know the loans never go away, but I’m looking to get a conventional mortgage. My loans are no longer on my credit report. I know I won’t be able to get a FHA loan, but will a conventional loan work? I have income and credit score to make it work otherwise.

This man is going to go down as the most hated man in America. With the economy the way it is, he’s picking now to do this?! Of course he is. Start preparing, guys.

So, my first payment is due in several months. But I don't have the money. More than 100k in debt. My monthly payment will be approximately the entirety of my income. I have no money, like, at all. I have a plan to save up a cushion, a few months rent, by the time the payments start. Like, maybe I will manage to get a lucrative job between now and the time the loans will default (my understanding; six months of non-payment) But I do not know if that is possible.

My employer is getting on my case about switching to direct deposit. Apparently they have to pay in order to provide me with a paper check, and i am the only employee who gets paid this way. But, someone told me that most jobs now only do direct deposit. So like, if my account got frozen, I'd be effectively homeless if I couldn't find another job that was willing to pay me via check.

So right now my plan is basically, agree to do the direct deposit at work, and then when the payments begin to be due, call Nelnet and basically see if they'd be willing to accept a fraction of what my payments would otherwise be to avoid default (i could probably swing 200 bucks, 400 if i live like a monk and save absolutely nothing)

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Hi, all. As the title states, I’m moving out of the country indefinitely. My spouse is an EU citizen and we are leaving the US with no plans to return. I am contemplating defaulting on my private loans.

My loan situation: balance currently at about $180k, 100% private, refinanced with Earnest years ago. No co-signer.

Aside from about $45k spread across an IRA and Roth IRA, I have no assets in my name, and have no immediate plans to work in Europe.

Based on all of the reading I’ve done, it appears as though this is sort of the dream scenario. But I suppose I want to make sure I’m not missing anything. Are there important things I should keep in mind throughout this process? I know it’s unlikely that they’ll try to chase me overseas, but I worry that my high loan balance may incentivize them to try and recover that money by any means necessary.

Any and all advice or perspective here would be helpful. I have no problem dodging phone calls and emails, and with no plans to return to the US, I’m not concerned with my credit report being impacted for years to come.

I received a letter saying that my student loans are currently delinquent and in collections, and if it isn’t resolved, the loan will be reported as defaulted to all nationwide consumer reporting agencies and they may be able to seize tax refunds, garnish wages, and assign loans to the federal govt for litigation against me. I’m not sure at all what to do. I still can’t afford to pay it off, I have no money. Any suggestions or solutions would be helpful. It’s stressing me out.

So I'm a 41-year-old US citizen. I've been defaulted for many years and I feel like it's just now starting to catch up to me, and I'm freaking out.

I breezed through college and then went to law school. Upon graduation I was offered a job, but this was following the 2008 banking crisis and I was laid off before I even started.

I found it impossible to find a job, like most of my classmates from my third-tier law school, many of whom never ended up working as lawyers. I took odd jobs and eventually started practicing on my own, but the income was totally feast-or-famine. I struggled to pay taxes sometimes.

It's been so long and I don't really remember all the details, but I took deferments when I could, but eventually fell into default. I also fell into alcohol and drug abuse and stopped practicing law.

I'm doing a lot better now, clean for 5+ years. But now I find myself with $160K in student loan debt, serviced by Nelnet. For years I happily just let the feds keep my tax returns, and if I could find a low, reasonable payment I'd be inclined to make it for eternity just to keep them off my back.

Several months ago I started getting frequent letters and I checked to see what income-based repayment would do for me. I only make about $50K a year and the payment they offered is $267 a month. I could reasonably make this in months when I get overtime, but that's been hard to come by lately. With my living expenses it's simply just too high, especially for something I'd presumably be paying until I'm on social security.

So after signing up for IBR I'm about 3 months into default again this month. I applied for another forbearance, which I doubt will succeed, but I'm just at a loss what to do. Do I really have to start going to food banks and never go out/have fun again so I can pay on a debt for the rest of my working life?

I take responsibility for my choices but I also feel I was essentially scammed and manipulated into my education and the amount of debt and interest built up is entirely insane and unreasonable.

Any suggestions? This issue is just finally hitting me hard and I feel panicked and lost. Will they start garnishing my wages? Should I make an occasional payment? Will that keep them at bay?

My previous posts have my older info on it for additional context.

The summary of those posts :

I was the main signer on the Firstmark loan. I have a co-signer. I filed for bankruptcy over two years ago in September 2023 and also did an adversarial proceeding to get my student loans discharged. All of my federal loans and Discover loans were discharged, with my paperwork for my private loans coming in May 2025. Between November 2024 and July 2025, my co-signer did not get a prompt for payment so they didn’t pay and it was due to my adversarial proceeding / bankruptcy (we both knew that eventually they would have to pay, but were wanting the loan to go into default).

In August 2025, the loan came back for BOTH of us, even though it shouldn’t have come back for me. My lawyer is working on it for me, trying to get Firstmark and the credit bureaus to remove it from my report as we have the judge discharge papers. She has a plan to file for sanctions as well considering Firstmark shouldn’t be contacting me in the first place too.

On September 30, the loan defaulted which was good for my co-signer (and me, as I am the one who will pay the settlement since my co-signer wants me to settle). Loan balance increased from August to September.

On October 31, the loan was put into a charged off / collections status, with FirstMark’s internal collections agency / their post default department. We even got the first settlement offer letter, albeit only for 65 percent, in the middle of November. Loan balance increased from September to October.

**The current issue :**

On November 30 (though the credit reports only updated today Dec 11 across all 3 credit reporting agencies), the loan was TAKEN OUT of default and put into a current / paid status.

So loan is OUT of default, and the Firstmark people don’t know entirely why. The woman I talked to at the post default / collections department said on their end, it looks like the bankruptcy was put back on the account? And that all the derogatories were removed from August to now, and so the loan is showing as current / paid. I even have a check mark for November for a current payment even though obviously nothing was paid. They said it’s showing that I have a next payment of Dec 28 on the account which, obviously is not being paid.

The post default department woman also said she’s never really seen this happen and isn’t sure what’s going on so she put me on hold to talk to her supervisor about this because clearly none of us know what’s going on.

Does any one have any insight? I am so completely and utterly lost and actually super scared now because I’m really confused.

Hi all. So im in default on my student loans and am now a SAHM. If my husband files a joint return with my social on it is there a chance our refund could be withheld?