Student Loan Default: A Complete List Of Horrible Consequences That Arise When You Let It Happen

Quick! Write this on your bathroom mirror:

I will not default on my student loans. I will not default on my student loans.

Actually, write it down all over the place, and burn it deep into your brain. Why? Because if you learned absolutely nothing from your college education, at least retain this:

Defaulting on your student loans is one of the worst possible things you can do for your future well-being, personal finances, and reputation. Period.

Student Loan Debt Taking Over America

According to projectstudentdebt.org, 71% of all students graduating from 4-year colleges in the U.S. in 2012 had student loan debt. And, as recently pointed out by Mother Jones, the cost of going to college has risen 12 times for Millennial Americans compared to what the previous generation paid for school. At this point, it would safe to say that student loan debt in the United States is officially a catastrophe.

In fact, student loan debt has become so out of control that it now surpasses the total amount of credit card AND auto loan debt in the United States. To make matters worse, the lingering effects of the Great Recession have continued to create a horrible job outlook for graduates, which in turn has pushed millions of Americans to make the tragic decision of defaulting on their student loans.

And as you’ll see below, there are few things in America that have such drastic negative consequences – both personally and financially – as defaulting on your student loans.

Defaulting On Student Loans = Nightmare

Ever since the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law, there are absolutely no types of student loans – neither government nor private loans – that can be discharged by simply filing for bankruptcy. In other words, even if you file for bankruptcy in a desperate attempt to get rid of your student loan payments, it will not work 99% of the time.

(In fact, filing for bankruptcy can actually cause MORE problems when combined with student loan default – but that is a topic best reserved for another article.)

According to Hampshire College financial aid office:

If you are late making your Direct loan monthly payments, your loan will be considered to be delinquent. Delinquencies on your Direct loan payments are reported to national credit bureaus after being 60 days late. After 240 days of being delinquent, the entire loan, including interest, becomes due immediately and in full. Loan default occurs after one is 270 days late. Having defaulted on your loan means that you have abandoned your responsibility to repay the loan.

Below is an exhaustive list of negative consequences that can happen to you as a result of defaulting on your federal OR private student loans:

In conclusion… DO NOT default on your student loans! (Try this instead)

Livingston Parish Literacy and Technology Center

Southeastern Louisiana University : St. Tammany Center

How To Legally Get Out Of Paying Back Your Federal Student Loans To Avoid Defaulting Or Bankruptcy

Student loan debt is crushing the American middle class.

In fact, the total amount of debt from student loans in the United States is now greater than credit card debt AND auto loan debt – and it’s growing, quickly.

A recent study by Mother Jones concluded that for the Millennial generation alone, the cost of going to college has risen 12 times compared to what the previous generation paid for school. And with the days of the Great Recession far from over, as the United States and other countries continue to suffer from the effects of the 2007-2008 financial crisis (not to mention the large number of foreign immigrants with U.S. jobs), the amount of jobs available to today’s college graduates are slim to none.

With poor job prospects and a massive amount of debt, American 18-34 year olds are often without health insurance, a decent salary, a decent credit score, let alone any way to be approved for a housing mortgage. In this environment, millions have inadvertently defaulted on their student loan payments, creating massive problems for their future as they face bankruptcy and a ruined credit score.

Whatever You Do, Avoid Defaulting On Loans

In the United States, defaulting on your student loans is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. Not only does it destroy your credit score, but the IRS could garnish your wages or tax refunds for decades in order to pay back your loans, among dozens of other possible nightmares. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not seem to be aware of the very simple and easy way to STOP their student loan payments.

And even though the predatory nature of student loans means that declaring bankruptcy does not usually absolve you from having to pay off your student loans in full, there is still an easy way to stop your loan payments during times of financial hardship. And whether you are working part-time at Costco, living with your parents, or even teaching English abroad, there’s a strong chance it will apply to you.

And the real kicker? It’s a PDF form that only takes 5 minutes to complete.

Like most forms drafted by federal government agencies, it has a ridiculously long and confusing name: Income-Based (IBR) / Pay As You Earn / Income-Contigent (ICR) Repayment Plan Request. Or in plain English:

Dear government, I have no f*cking money. Nor do I have a high-paying job. Please stop or greatly reduce my monthly student loan payments, until I’m rich. Sincerely, Poor College Graduate Living In A Country Controlled By Corrupt Politicians And Wall Street Bankers.

It doesn’t matter who your student loan servicer is, because they are all forced to abide by federal guidelines that allow borrowers to stop payments at any time under the right conditions. And while some private servicers (i.e. Sallie Mae) will try to confuse the sh*t out of you about those conditions, its actually quite simple. Anytime your monthly salary (i.e. part-time job) is low enough, you simply attach a copy of your salary contract or recent pay stub, send in the below PDF form, and wait a few days for approval. In most cases, the IBR (Income-Based Repayment) is the simplest option, and you’ll usually qualify for $0 in monthly payments if your salary is somewhere around $20,000 or less. The newer “Pay As You Earn” option has been strongly endorsed by President Obama and usually sets your monthly loan payments at about 10% of your monthly income.

Note: If you have difficulty understanding this form, simply download the PDF and then call your loan servicer on the phone and tell them you require help filling it out.

Aichi Shukutoku University : Hoshigaoka

West Coast Ultrasound Institute : Phoenix

West Coast Ultrasound Institute : Beverly Hills

Dutch Student Fakes 5-Week Travel Holiday To Asia Using The Power Of Photoshop And Social Media

If you hate seeing all those adventurous photos your friends post on Facebook while you sit at work trying to scrape money together for dinner, this story’s for you.

Zilla van den Born, a college student from the Netherlands, faked an exotic trip to Southeast Asia for five solid weeks, under the stated guise of a “university project” – without ever leaving her hometown of Amsterdam. Purposefully tricking all of her friends and family members, the only person who knew the truth was her boyfriend, who happened to be in on the elaborate prank.

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The story broke in English on GapYear, a website dedicated to helping college students plan working and traveling holidays – often called “gap years” in the U.K. – who quoted van den Born as she explained her social experiment to the Dutch media:

“I did this to show people that we filter and manipulate what we show on social media, and that we create an online world which reality can no longer meet. My goal was to prove how common and easy it is to distort reality. Everybody knows that pictures of models are manipulated. But we often overlook the fact that we manipulate reality also in our own lives.”

For 42 days straight, van den Born posted photos and videos of herself online doing things you’d expect to see from a friend who is visiting Southeast Asia – from snorkeling in the ocean, to visiting a Thai Buddhist temple, to sitting next to a young Cambodian girl atop ancient Khmer ruins. She even completely decorated her room with Oriental furnishings so that she could have authentic-looking Skype conversations with her family.

zilla-van-den-born-room-1

Many of the scenes were indeed “real” experiences; however, the locations simply happened to be in Amsterdam. Her “snorkeling” adventure, for example, took place in her own backyard swimming pool, with a bit of Photoshop mixed in to superimpose tropical fish in the background. Even the Buddhist temple she posed at was a legitimate place – that just so happened to be located nearby her home.

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Van den Born, who studies graphic design, eventually revealed to her family and friends that they had been fooled, and of course, filmed their reactions. She released the below video series of the entire escapade, which shows exactly how she was able to create her exotic experiences using Photoshop tools (and a bit of social persuasion):

Of course, it makes you wonder if actually GOING to Asia for 5 weeks would have been a more worthwhile endeavor… I guess we’ll never know.

Fortis College : Cutler Bay

Fortis Institute : Fort Lauderdale

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