Mortgage and Insurance

Hey All;

 

I’m looking for some ideas/mental support on how to manage my private student loan situation…

 

Basically between 2006-07 I took out $50,000 to finish school over 3 loans from RBS/Citizens through AES. At the time, my credit score was in the low 500′s (mistakes when I was a teenager), so my mother, who is on SSI/Disability but has a decent credit score co-signed and I received the loans no problem.

 

After school (end of ’08), I got a decent job and began repayment of around $500 per month on my private loans (and $232 on my federal ones), as well as general credit repair & paying things off, and my FICO jumped up to about 655. In October ’10 I got the “take a salary cut of about 45% or your laid off–your choice”–which put me back in the position of barely being able to pay the “essential bills” let alone a bunch of student loans.

 

I immediately put my federal loans in forbearance–no problem. The private ones are a different story, as they allow a year forbearance (looks like it will be at LEAST a year–probably more like 24 months before my income can return to normal)–but can only be taken for 3 months in any one year. So now they’re back up to full payment, and there is no way I can make those payments. AES is *no help*–they sent me a form to request another forbearance by explaining your situation–which I did, to which I got back “DENIED–RBS/Citizens only allows you to take out forbearance in blocks of 3 months each calendar year–you may request forbearance again after January, 2012″–the ironic thing is that in the application they ask you to “please explain your situation so that we can consider this in our decision”.

 

I tried to offer to make smaller payments etc. but they said NO–it would still default. The only option they offered me was to consolidate my loans, which would bring the payments down to a little over $300 a month–a little better than 500 (and when I can pay $500 it would help pay the principal down faster), and “depending on the lender” a more generous forbearance term (they said RBS is one of the worst to deal with in this regard).So I applied… and was turned down!

 

I then tried applying with my mom as a co-signer as I did before for consolidation–no dice… Because she has no income other than SSI/Disability and “with stricter standards we have in place now, we can no longer accept her income level for your loan”–this never stopped them the first time! Tried my dad… he had a bankruptcy in 2003–won’t work either!

 

This is insane… it’s as if they want me to fail! I can’t get on forbearance because of some bank policy… yet I can’t refinance/consolidate because my co-signer is no longer good enough (last she checked she had a 706, just no income), and because I can’t make full payments (I am still sending them $200 though), my FICO has dropped from a 655 to 565–and I wasn’t good enough even at 655! Any ideas? I really love my job, and this is just supposed to be temporary, so I don’t exactly want a new one–second job won’t work since I’m in management and work 50-60 hours almost as it is. The boss is saying “ride it out–18 months max and we’ll be out of this”… at least I **have** a job and am making **some** payments.A different co-signer is out of the question.

 

This is just disheartening! Any ideas on how to get some more forbearance time, or even better, a consolidation?

 

–James

• is a credit score of 655 good enough to get a private student loan?