Ashley Hardin dreamed of being a professional photographer — glamorous shoots, perhaps some exotic travel. So in 2006, she enrolled in the Brooks Institute of Photography and borrowed more than $150,000 to pay for what the school described as a pathway into an industry clamoring for its graduates.
“Brooks was advertised as the most prestigious photography school on the West Coast,” Ms. Hardin said. “I wanted to learn from the best of the best.”
Ms. Hardin did not realize that she had taken out high-risk private loans in pursuit of a low-paying career. But her lender, SLM Corporation, better known as Sallie Mae, knew all of that, government lawyers say — and made the loans anyway.
In recent months, the student loan giant Navient, which was spun off from Sallie Mae in 2014 and retained nearly all of the company’s loan portfolio, has come under fire for aggressive and sloppy loan collection practices, which led to a set of government lawsuits filed in January. But those accusations have overshadowed broader claims, detailed in two state lawsuits filed by the attorneys general in Illinois and Washington, that Sallie Mae engaged in predatory lending, extending billions of dollars in private loans to students like Ms. Hardin that never should have been made in the first place.
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3 comments:
It seems people set themselves up for being 'taken for a ride'. What's the term here in Maryland: contributory negligence??
Some people have it coming to them.
Obama did this thru his student loan reform! And with this also wentbthe interest rates and they stopped the deferment of that interest, before his so. Allied reform you paid nothing till after graduation, now you make interest only payments until graduation and after that you make principal along with interest payments. He hurt kids with student loans! He did not help! But that's how he sold it! Students got the shaft on that so called student loan reform!
So long as there are the gullible, there will be colleges to let them in and take their money, regardless of qualifications and economic status. You only had a 2.1 GPA in high school? No problem! You scored a 350 on your SATs? No problem! You don't have a dime in the bank and have parent(s) who are struggling to keep the family afloat? No Problem! You're in! Sign here, and here, and initial here and here and here, next to the tiny, tiny print.
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