Uphill Battle

Although the decision to go to school was an easy one, getting here has been an uphill battle and a test of my faith and commitment.  I am not really an overcoming obstacles kind of person, I am more of a path of least resistance kind of girl.  Which is great because it makes me very flexible, but it also means I have settled for less many times in my life.

The first obstacle was how am I going to pay for school and have money to live on.  I completed my FAFSA online and found out I had a defaulted student loan.  I know you are thinking "How can you be a grown adult and 'forget' you have a student loan?"  Well, I had two student loans and was paying one of them back and somehow in the intervening years assumed I was paying on both of them.  Yes, it was boneheaded.  One cannot receive additional federal financial aid unless one is in good standing or has paid off one's student loans. I worked for six weeks trying to consolidate the loan and was a war that I lost.  I have battle scars from bureaucracy, red tape and and unconcerned employees at a certain loan servicer. I first called them on June 14 to find out what I needed to do and at that point they could have told me to contact the law firm that filed a judgement against me for the unpaid loan, but the didn't.  Imagine 6 weeks of daily and sometimes twice daily phone calls getting the run around only to find out at the end of July they couldn't help me and I needed to call XYZ Law Firm.  I was a bit torqued.  However, it was a lesson in persistence that I sorely needed.

I finally made contact with the law firm only to find out that I could not consolidate the loan and had to pay the entire $5,000 in bad debt in full before they could release the judgement.  If I had contacted them back in 1996 when they first got the judgement, I could have worked out payment arrangements and had it lifted.  However, I never knew about the judgement, it wasn't on my credit report which I stalk religiousily as of the last 2 years.  Not paying back student loans is a bad idea in general and it really complicates your life down the road!  I didn't know what to do because I couldn't consolidate the loan and I definitely did not have the cash laying around.  I was ready to give up going back to school.

Fortunately, I have a younger brother who was very supportive of my goal and believed it was the best thing for me to do.  His wife is also going to school with me!  He came up with the money and paid off my debt on August 6th, just 10 days before school was to start.

It took another month due to beaurocracy and red tape for the payment to be recognized.  Tuition for this semester was right at $1,400 plus another $640 for our kit.  The school had $500 pledged from the local workforce center to hold my place, but this would be returned to workforce center once my federal aid came in.  My brother and sister-in-law paid for my kit and books so I was able to begin school.

I am very appreciative of my family and the sacrifices they have made for me to follow my dream.