Student Loan Debt: My Personal Story

I have a very personal story to share with all you people out there with student loan debt. I am sharing this story in the hope that as many people as possible can learn from my mistakes. This is a true story that happened to me back in 1999.

I had been out of school for quite a while. I was working at a big law firm in New York City making a decent living, paying my bills and some of my debt. I had (foolishly) incurred a lot of credit card debt in my youth and I was really paying for it. I also had about $11,000 in student loan debt from a Federal Subsidized Stafford Loan I had taken out when I was in school. I wasn't paying my student loan debt. In fact, I completely ignored my student loan debt, throwing all the threatening letters I received into the trash! My thinking was, "what could they do to me? If I ignore the debt the government will step in a pay it off. Besides, those monthly payments are way too high!" There was a moderate amount of guilt associated with my actions, but it's hard to feel sorry for the richest government that has ever existed on the earth.