MonyCrashers.com - "What Happens If You Default On Federal Loans?"
I am now a contributing writer for MoneyCrashers.com. Here's a snippet from my first article about defaulting on your federal loans:
Defaulting on any form of student loan, whether private or federal, is a nightmare. But when it happens with federal loans, Uncle Sam is merciless. Currently, there are 36 million Americans with federal student loans, and a growing number of these borrowers are struggling or unable to pay their monthly balances. Not surprisingly, the Department of Education reported that default rates have risen at an alarming pace in the past few years.
The Loop 21 - Women Share Student Loan Debt Horror Stories
Here's a snippet from my latest piece over at Loop21:
Read the full story here.
A special report takes you into the student loan issues facing 3 women.
When it comes to experiencing life with debt, and more specifically, student loan debt, does one’s gender or race really matter? After all, student loan debt and how it affects a person’s life cuts across gender and race lines. (With a few tough love exceptions, student loan debt does not cut across class lines). When analyzing raw statistics that point to a now, full-blown student lending crisis in the U.S. (default rates are on the rise and outstanding student loan debt has hit $1 trillion), the differences between debtors tend to get lost in all those tables, graphs and digits. Of course, information of this sort culled and presented by social scientists, policymakers and economists is critical. Indeed, such data certainly helps us understand the bigger picture on all sorts of issues. However, and in this case, such findings don’t provide us with insights into everyday life as a student loan debtor. So while it might be understood that a debtor is just a debtor, testimonials from indebted individuals offer a more complex narrative about this crippling, societal problem. These personal stories also allow us to understand how student loan debt affects individuals in different ways.
Read the full story here.