The Student Loan Lawyer''s Guide to Understanding Student Loans in Plain English

Ri Cohen Joshua

Description

A self-help guide to understanding and better managing your student loans. All are encouraged to purchase this book... students and parents. If you have had or have ever known anyone to have had student debt, this is the book for you!

Informations

• Publié par: Waldorf Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781648713026
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Student Loan Lawyer’s Guide to
Understanding Student Loans in Plain English
A self-help guide to understanding and better managing your student loans
By Joshua R. I. Cohen The Student Loan Lawyer America’s FIRST lawyer dedicated to Student Loan issues



Published by Waldorf Publishing
2140 Hall Johnson Road
#102-345
Grapevine, Texas 76051
www.WaldorfPublishing.com
The Student Loan Lawyer’s Guide to Understanding Student Loans in Plain English
ISBN: 978-1-64871-302-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937471
Copyright © 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper without permission in writing from the publisher.
Design by Baris Celik


Acknowledgements
Thank you to the thousands of people who have contacted me since I started my Student Loan Law practice in 2008. You put your trust in me to guide you through the murky waters of student loans.
Thank you to the hundreds of attorneys who have attended my Student Loan Law Workshop. You took what I taught you and ran far and wide, to assist the multitude of borrowers needing help, pushing the boundaries of what could be done.
Thank you to my children, for thinking I’m a Judge but not telling that to anyone. Also, thank you for being my excuse for needing a game system – and my excuse for playing.


Dedication
To my Grandma Rose
My wonderful grandma Rose was a teacher in the NYC Public School System. She never gave up, never gave in, and was never afraid to throw a punch at those who deserved it. She never let me quit; she always challenged me; and she always had M&Ms waiting for me. When I was down and out, she helped me recover. When I was doing well, she was full of pride. Yes, she had her thorns, but she was a Rose, after all. Much missed, but never forgotten. Thank you, Grandma.


Welcome to the Wonderful World of Student Loans
Student loans and financial aid for higher education have been the Topic of the Day in the news, almost daily today, as it has been for over a decade. A discussion of how to pay—and who will pay—for higher education is part of every political campaign. One way or another, we are all impacted by the cost of higher education. Whether or not the college bill is yours, if you’re a working adult, a college student, think higher education may be in your future, or if you’re a parent or spouse of someone in college or going to college, the cost is always on your mind. It’s a hot topic for politicians and a subject of heated debates on social media. Should college be free? Should buyers beware? Should we do away with the Federal loan system and let the private market dictate? All of these are great questions but I won’t comment on those because that isn’t the point of this book.
This is a self-help book. A how-to book. If you have student loans or are thinking about getting them, this book is for you. If you’re closely related to someone who fits into one of those categories, this book is for you too. Reading this book will help you learn how these loans work and what your options are to deal with them. It’ll help you understand why the interest charged on Federal loans is often a red herring. You’ll discover the key differences between Federal and private loans. And you will learn why certain loans are a bad idea while others may be acceptable.
This book isn’t meant to help you plan your finances for college, but it will help you better understand the role of loans and how to make sure the loans do not take over your life. You won’t find any secret way to “get rid” of your loans. In fact, there are no secrets. All I’ve done is taken what’s out there, specifically from the law, the regulations, and other sources, and put it all into plain English in an organized fashion. Then you can do for yourself what you could have been able to do without this book, had not the system been so confusing and, at times, even contradictory.
I’ve been The Student Loan Lawyer since 2008. I embraced that title in response to the overwhelming demand for assistance with student loans. Current, past, and future students alike, as well as parents, spouses, and other family members all discovered a daunting amount of conflicting instructions, guidelines, and rules. The struggle to make sense of it all led many people to me. Over the years, I’ve discovered that while people should be able to understand student loan options and how they impact borrowers by themselves, many cannot because the information is cryptic. I’ve even had lawyers come to me who couldn’t understand the ins and outs of the student loan system, because nothing is written or explained in a way that is understandable. Why? I have no idea. It shouldn’t be that hard. But, because the industry makes it difficult, it created my niche. It has become my mission to help people lost in the process and often confronted with crushing debt. For more than a decade I have been helping both consumers and attorneys learn the ropes and deal with the issues.
I’ve been doing this long enough to realize that this book was needed. There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to help everyone, and there aren’t enough lawyers who specialize in this area. So here it is. A book to help you understand the basics. The specific laws and regulations that govern the industry are not discussed here. Instead, this book covers the basics for you, the borrower, to understand the who, what, where, when, and how, of your student loans in plain language.
So, go forth. Read and understand. Then read again and understand more. Realize that the industry wins because you don’t have the information you need. When you have that information, you’ll become a force to be reckoned with. They say knowledge is power. Nothing could be truer when it comes to your student loans. This book will give you that knowledge and give you that power: The power to deal with your loans. The power to get your life back. The power to live and reach the goals you might have lost when the industry came crashing down on you. After you read this book, you’ll be able to throw off that weight. You’ll know that you are not alone, and you can deal with your student loans. We all went to college to better our lives. We don’t live to pay our student loans.


Chapter 1: Types of Student Loans
Remember when you first applied to college and got accepted? The mail you received after your acceptance was exciting; it let you know about your Financial Aid award. And every year you attended college; you’d get another Financial Aid award letter. That letter listed all the financial aid you received. It included scholarships and grants, work-study, and of course, Federal student loans.
Scholarships and grants are what everyone wants because they don’t need to be paid back. It is free money, at least until you start paying taxes. Work-study is money set aside for school-based employment, meant to be used for living expenses while attending college. The catch is that you have to actually find a place on campus that has work-study money in their budget and is willing to hire you. Many student-held jobs on campus are funded through the work-study program.
And then there are the Federal loans. This is money loaned to you and must, as with all loans, be paid back. Unfortunately, the vast majority of students, undergraduate and graduate alike, and especially incoming freshmen, don’t have a clue about what they are getting into. Because Federal student loans do not require credit, most everyone is eligible. So there you are, looking at the cost of college. A small portion of this cost may be paid through a grant or scholarship, if you are lucky. You might also have the option of maybe finding work so you can collect Work-Study money. And a big chunk can be paid for with the student loan offer. You may feel caught between a rock and a hard place. You can’t afford to go to college without that money, but the word “loan” may stick in your throat. You may feel like it is your only option.
Before we go further, understand that there are other loans out there. Oftentimes, especially for the middle class, there is a gap between the financial aid awarded and the actual cost of college. That gap needs to be filled. If there is a way to fill that gap through savings, 529 plans (college savings plan), or other sources, great. If not, alternative loans are the eventual evil option. 1 Alternative loans are non-Federal loans, also known as Private and State loans, and are discussed in Chapters 13 and 14.
When using this book, the first thing you need to identify is the kind of loans you have. Think of this as learning about automotive vehicles. There are cars, trucks, and motorcycles. They all essentially work the same way and get you from point A to point B. They have different parts and require different degrees of expertise to repair them if they break down.
Student loans come in three varieties: Federal State Private
This book focuses on Federal loans because they are the most common type of student loan and the easiest to deal with. Federal loans are governed by Federal law, which means it doesn’t matter where you live when dealing with your Federal loans. Regardless of whether you live in New York or California, go to c